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From:
JZion@aol.com
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 4:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Tara/Skreen] New Mexico Initiative
Vincent is quite right about money issues, which I call "bread and
butter" issues. I must agree that cultural and human issues do not
carry the same weight, but they are important.
What is the money issue here? Tourism. The two times I've flown into
Dublin from the United States, there were long lines of students
arriving to study Joyce, get in touch with their Irish roots, and maybe
even visit Tara and Skreen. The right to culture issue is one of
several legal issues that can be posed to an Irish court, but it
directly relates to we of Irish heritage and, as one member of this
group put it, the rights of the people of the diaspora. What do we
think of destroying the healing sense of place in terms of our cultural
heritage?
The other evening, as I settled in to relax, I pulled a copy of Edel
Bhreathnach and Conor Newman's little monograph on Tara written for The
Discovery Programme and The Government of Ireland (1995). It makes the
interesting point that Tara is central to Irish culture, although a lot
of it is myth and legend. Myth and legend are part of our personality.
I also see that Bhreathnach has written a bibliography on Tara.
Who out there is willing to follow up and develop cultural arguments
about how important Tara is? I don't find much on Skreen on the Web.
What about it?
Another thing we can talk about is whether the Irish courts are willing
to accept comparative law arguments. They have been central to three
recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings. When South Africa debated takings
for its constitution recently, the U.S. precedent on takings was very
important to the debate over takings and the restoration of land to the
indigenous peoples of South Africa. Under U.S. law, taking private land
to give to a private toll company would violate the U.S. takings clause
in our Constitution.
And it isn't simply taking from private landowners near Tara and
Skreen. It is taking our culture and heritage. I saw the map of the
proposed motorway, with four lanes and an interchange just north of the
Hill of Tara. What do you think that's going to do to the area? As the
sixties song went, "They've
paved paradise and put up a parking lot." And... "Don't it always seem
to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?"
Folks, that's what's going to happen here if we don't get more active.
Jim Zion
Albuquerque
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