Madam, - There is a current planning application submitted to Meath County Council for a construction and demolition waste recycling plant at the base of the Hill of Tara. The location of the proposed plant is at Philpotstown cross roads, commonly known as Garlow Cross.
The applicant refers to the small River Gabhra which is in near proximity to the proposed development, not by its name, but as a "drain".
Surely the applicant must know that, in Irish mythology, the area of the proposed development was the scene of the Battle of Gabhra in the third century AD. In that battle, caused by the resentment of the High King of Tara towards Finn and the Fianna, the Fianna outnumbered by 20 to one, were defeated and their power broken. The legend concludes: ".. and it is many of the Fianna were left dead in Gabhra, and graves were made for them and the whole length of the Rath of Gabhra, from end to end, it is that was the grave of Oscar, son of Oisin, son of Finn."
In my reaction to reading this unworthy reference to the River Gabhra I made a connection with a small river in northern Italy, the Rubicon. As is well known, Julius Caesar crossed that river in the first century BC in defiance of Pompey and the Roman Senate and so gave us the phrase "crossing the Rubicon." It is said that as Caesar crossed the river he uttered the phrase "The die is cast" and so began a civil war .
Have we crossed the Rubicon in permitting the planned M3 motorway through the Tara-Skryne valley and across the Gabhra battlefield site? Will the die be cast for the internationally important Hill of Tara and its setting if this development is permitted? Will this be the first of many developments around the nearby preposterous Blundelstown interchange?
Will Minister for the Environment Dick Roche, who promised protection against development in this area, take decisive action to prevent this first assault and so preserve the integrity of the area, or what little is left of it, if and when the motorway is constructed? Does anybody in authority care?
I will conclude by quoting from W.B. Yeats in his preface to Lady Gregory's Irish Mythology: "This land where your fathers lived proudly and finely should be dear and dear and again dear". - Yours, etc,
TOMMY HAMILL, Ballinter, Navan, Co Meath.