THE ANCIENT seat of the Irish High Kings and a 18th century Georgian villa are among the most endangered monuments in the world.
Yesterday, the World Monuments Fund included the Hill of Tara in Meath and Vernon Mount in Cork in its list of the 100 most threatened monuments under threat of immediate destruction unless steps are taken to save them.
Richhill House in Co Armagh - which dates from 1655 - is also included because of its poor state of repair while Vernon Mount in Cork, from the 1780s, is 'considerably deteriorated'.
The house, which commands views across Cork City, contains 'exceptional' neoclassical mythological paintings by the late-eighteenth-century artist
Nathaniel Grogan but its current owners say the rest of its site must be redeveloped to fund renovations.
But perhaps the most contentious site is the Hill of Tara in Co Meath. There are plans to build the M3 motorway through the Tara/Skryne Valley just 1.5km from the hill and the World Monuments Fund (WMF) placed it on its crisis list after campaigns and court battles failed to reroute the motorway.
Environment Minister Dick Roche has yet to decide if the M3 should be rerouted following the discovery of a national monument earlier this year, but yesterday his department had no timeframe for when the decision might be made.
The WMF said that Tara was considered the ceremonial and mythical capital of Ireland and was the centrepiece of a large archaeological landscape.
Paul Melia
© Irish Independent
No comments:
Post a Comment