Heritage manifests itself in a multiplicity of forms: the natural and built landscape, our literature and music, language and sport, as well as in the treasures of the past and traditional ways of life we memorialise in our museums.
National Heritage Week, which begins today, is an opportunity to revisit that heritage, both nationally and locally, and to think again about the responsibilities we have to preserve it for future generations.
We have not always performed that duty as well as we should have - the 1960s and 1970s are not periods to be proud of: swathes of Georgian elegance were swept away in the frenzy to modernise the Dublin cityscape and the campaign to save the Viking site on Wood Quay ended in defeat for the considerable body of public opinion that regarded it as a part of Dublin's history to be preserved. Now the low-rise character of the capital's skyline is being allowed to change by stealth.
The conflict between development and conservation continues - and it always will - but what is disappointing is the extent to which lessons are not learned and mistakes often repeated. Some of today's campaigns illustrate the blithe disregard that continues to be accorded to some of our heritage landmarks - Tara, Trim Castle, Airfield House and, if the connection with the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation turns out to be true, the Moore Street house that has become the cause of Dublin's latest preservation campaign.
Our landscape - for so long the magnet that attracted tourists to our shores - is being transformed beyond recognition by inappropriate suburbanisation. That we are the only country in Europe without legislation to protect the landscape - as the Heritage Council reminded us last week - is alarming. While the M3 motorway seems likely to go ahead, against the weight of expert opinion, there is the danger that it could then attract residential or other developments that will further intrude on what the director of the National Museum, Dr Pat Wallace, has described as "a unique cultural landscape". We have wilfully allowed the demise of the traditional farmhouse. Historic buildings await restoration; there appears to be official reluctance to make the case for some of our great national monuments to be designated as world heritage sites. A National Trust to safeguard our great houses was promised in 2003; not much has been heard since.
The supplement with today's editions, Ireland's Heritage, shows the abundance and diversity of our immensely rich heritage. The Government should note that a recent Heritage Council survey found that 76 per cent of respondents wanted action to protect it.