The developer of the Corrib gas field off the west coast has urged the High Court to discharge orders restraining works in Co Mayo related to the construction of an underground gas pipeline.
Enterprise Energy Ireland Ltd has rejected claims that the works at Glengad and Rossport South, Ballina, failed to meet planning requirements and involved interference with a cillin, a burial ground for unbaptised children. The company also denies that the construction of a temporary access road at Glengad presents a road safety risk.
On June 10th, Mr Justice O'Sullivan granted interim orders to Ms Mary Philbin, of Rossport South, restraining the works at both sites. Ms Philbin claimed a cillin had been removed in the course of the works and that the works did not have planning permission.
The company has denied those claims and has complained the orders are costing it €85,000 a day. If continued, the order may expose the company to irreparable damage, it said.
Mr Justice Ó Caoimh yesterday heard arguments for and against the continuation of the order. He was also presented with a large number of affidavits from engineers, planning consultants, archaeologists and other experts on behalf of both sides. Affidavits were also submitted from a number of local people in support of Ms Philbin.
In an affidavit, Mr William Frazer, an archaeologist, said he was satisfied there was only one recorded archaeological monument in the field at Glengad, which is linked to the pipeline development by an access road.
He had monitored all works in the vicinity of this monument and no archaeological material had been discovered during excavations at the site to date. No evidence whatever had been discovered for the existence of a second archaeological monument or any other feature of archaeological significance at the site, he said.
A second mound in the field, which Ms Philbin had described as a cillin, had no archaeological importance, being a modern "spoil heap", he said. The removal of that spoil heap had been done in full compliance with best archaeological practice.
Mr Frazer's claim that there was no cillin in the field was disputed by Ms Philbin's side. They claimed a cillin was removed as part of the pipeline works and contended it was irrelevant that the cillin was not recorded on Ordnance Survey and other maps.
In an affidavit, Ms Treasa Ní Ghearraigh, an archaeologist, said that, in former times, a child who died before it was baptised in the Catholic faith could not be buried in consecrated ground and was buried in unconsecrated ground. The tracing and identification of a cillin, from an archaeological perspective, was difficult.
Most of those burial sites were not formally recorded and such sites could only be established through local knowledge. She did not find it surprising there was no formal record of a cillin at Glengad.
In another affidavit, Mr Micheál Ó Seighin, a teacher in Rossport, said the two mounds referred to constituted a sacred place in the tradition of the locality and should not be interfered with.
When seeking to research where cillins were, one had to be sensitive to the feelings of people who were aware of their location, largely because of the psychological trauma associated with burying children in unconsecrated ground, usually in secret, he added. From his personal research, there was "an embedded sense of guilt or shame held in the collective consciousness of a community regarding cillins", which led to a reluctance to admit to knowledge of their existence.
The hearing is expected to conclude today.
