Letters To The Editor 2005-05-27

Woodstown: a new national monument and Waterford victory

On 11 May, Minister Dick Roche announced that the Viking site at Woodstown is to be protected as a national monument. He also stated that he proposed to establish a working group made up of representatives of his department, the National Museum and Waterford City Council to advise him on the appropriate management of what he termed "this very important site".

This announcement is a triumph for the people of Waterford and the south-east. It was Waterford citizens who decided last September that, on the basis of media reports, this was a site which deserved special treatment as a unique witness to our past heritage. It was the Waterford Trades Council who backed the campaign from the very beginning; it was Waterford newspapers and columnists who kept the issue in the public eye; it was Waterford City Councillors who debated the issue on the radio and in print. Most of all, it was Waterford citizens in their thousands who signed the on-street and internet petitions for a research-standard excavation on the site with full and speedy publication of the results. It is because of their actions and their enthusiasm that the minister made this announcement and we owe them our most grateful thanks for their support.

This is the very first time that a Minister for the Environment has stated that local people have the right to be involved in planning the future management of an archaeological site in their area. The fact that Waterford City Councillors will be involved in the advisory group is a recognition that the Woodstown site, which was first fortified by Déise chieftains long before the Vikings ever arrived, is an important asset for Waterford and that it must be managed in such a way as to exploit its cultural and tourist potential for the south-east.

The other important point to note in the Minister's directions is the fact that the long-term strategy for Woodstown is to include archaeological investigation. It is the belief of the Save Viking Waterford Action Group that such investigation should include excavation, preferably in collaboration with experts in Viking archaeology in both Ireland and abroad.

In our view, any such excavations should build on the format established by the Temple Bar excavations in making the work as accessible as possible to local people and to schools so that the dig itself can provide a popular attraction. Perhaps, as happened at Temple Bar, videoing of the work or even the installation of web-cams could take place so that even after the excavation has finished, students and interested parties can still benefit. Finally, we would also like to see a situation in which the material discovered in the dig could be examined and studied here in the south-east. The new campus at Waterford Institute of Technology is immediately beside the site and that could prove to be an invaluable resource in any such work.

I hope the Save Viking Waterford Action Group will continue to provide a forum for such citizens and to contribute to the debate on how we may best exploit the wonderful resource which Woodstown provides into the future.

catherine swift

Chair of Save Viking Waterford Action G

Don't tax our artists

The artists' tax exemption, introduced by Fianna Fáil, is currently under review along with a raft of other tax incentives and exemptions. There is something unique and extremely valuable about the artists' exemption and there are a variety of reasons as to why we should retain it in its present form.

It is illogical to lump the review of the artists' exemption scheme with that of the reliefs given for the construction of car parks! Such incentives have been very valuable but should, in my view, only be short-term initiatives to address particular needs. The artists' exemption is an entirely different matter.

The day-to-day reality for most artists is that their chosen profession is extremely labour intensive. They take their concept from planning to design to implementation with no guarantee whatsoever that their "product" will succeed in the marketplace. If it doesn't they start the process all over again. In Ireland today most artists survive by supplementing their incomes through a range of "bread and butter" activities, such as working in restaurants, cafés or part-time jobs teaching art.

Evidence of these facts is found in the Artists' Exemption Scheme statistics prepared by the Irish Revenue for 2001:

more than 30 per cent of beneficiaries of the Artists' Exemption Scheme in 2001 had creative artistic earnings of less than €2,000 that year;

more than 50 per cent of beneficiaries survived on an annual artistic income of less than €10,000; excluding the top 28 earners under the Scheme in 2001, average annual earnings per artist were estimated at €26,000.

In addition, the Artists' Exemption Scheme has played an important role in ensuring the continued residency of internationally-acclaimed and successful artists in Ireland. Their residency has conferred a range of benefits of an economic and social nature on this country.

With regard to the former, it is not the case the earnings of the "super-wealthy" are fully exempt from taxation as a result of the Artists' Exemption Scheme. Rather, the exemption pertains to copyright income – which can account for as little as 25 per cent of the earnings of certain musicians.

In other words, many of the most commercially-successful beneficiaries of the Artists' Exemption Scheme are liable for full Irish taxation on a very substantial share of their global earnings. In the absence of the scheme, it is likely that these taxable incomes would arise in another tax jurisdiction.

It is unquestionable that the blatant "Irishness" of artists like Bono has conferred more indirect benefits of an economic nature on Ireland. The perceived international "chicness" of Dublin, for example, has been a major driver of tourist demand for Ireland over the course of the last decade. Similarly, a sense of the existence of a "creative culture" is reputed to have influenced the investment decisions of technology-based multi-national corporations such as eBay.

In contrast to some of the other tax reliefs under review, the Artists' Exemption Scheme is not one which is the exclusive preserve of the wealthy. Ultimately the artist interprets and holds a mirror up to society. That is a role that, in an increasingly consumerised and commercialised society, goes largely unappreciated. Many today bemoan the fact that we have less time to think and, consequently, to be. Indeed the recent response to the death of the Pope shows, in my view, a need for something deeper.

Apart from contributing to our international reputation, this special exemption places a real value on art in our society. The very existence of the exemption acknowledges the intrinsic value of art. With this exemption we are saying to ourselves and the world that we are a society that values individual expression.

What a counterpoint this is to rampant globalisation, where trillions are spent by advertising and marketing companies on surveying our attitudes in order to be able to dictate what we want to eat for breakfast tomorrow.

I would also caution against jumping to the conclusion that, because a very small number of our big name stars earn billions and pay no tax as a result of the exemption, they are "ripping us off".

Because we don't have a methodology for carrying out a true cost-benefit analysis we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that the State is the loser in the equation. The knock-on effect of the artists' exemption is that of facilitating artists to stay in their own communities. For too long we have given only lip service to the idea of vibrant communities and local and regional development. Vibrant artistic communities exist in places like West Cork and, more recently, Leitrim. Ask anyone who is familiar with these communities about the role of the artist in their environment and see the pride with which they respond.

Chris Andrews

Fianna Fáil Representative, Dublin South East

Arrogance,

ignorance and bad manners

I was surprised that your profile of Dr Hugh Brady (Village 20 May) omitted one point. That is Dr Brady's new found career as a "know all" developer.

Since his appointment, and without any consultation with adjoining residents, Dr Brady and his cohorts have lodged a Planning Application for 479 apartments, office buildings rising from six to twelve storeys, shops gymnasium, car parking for over nine hundred cars on land long used for sporting activities at Belfield. The site notice for these monstrosities were placed approximately one and a half miles from the residents most affected and at locations in which the residents were most unlikely to see them.

This so called "visionary" is so concerned about the community that he has located this "development" as far away from his own palatial mansion and as close to the houses at Beech Hill and Airfield as it is possible to get.

We are told, in your profile, that Dr Brady is both a very polite man and a workaholic. Perhaps he could demonstrate either of these attributes by replying to correspondence, first sent to him in November 2004 and copied several times since. The people of this community would expect that a President of a major University might practice what his college teaches. I would be shocked to learn that the UCD School of Architecture would teach students the arrogance, ignorance and sheer bad manners displayed to date by Dr Brady.

Councillor Dermot Lacey,

Donnybrook, Dublin 4

Michael McDowell and asylum seekers

Unfit for office

I see Michael McDowell is at it again. He never seems to tire of his favourite hobby-horse, which is to denigrate asylum-seekers, particularly those from the African continent. It is truly awful to witness the spectacle of a Minister for Justice acting like a school yard bully and adding to the scourge of racism by his disgraceful remarks, made to an Oireachtas committee.

I, for one, am sick to death of hearing the Minister spouting what in effect amounts to incitement to hatred. I totally agree with Vincent Browne, these remards do make him unfit for government. I am disgusted.

Vic McKeever

Dublin 14

Let's learn from Eircom

Privatisation does not work

I would like to welcome the fact that the Government has finally stopped dithering on the issue of the second terminal at Dublin Airport and at long last made a decision. It is also to be welcomed that the building of the second terminal and its ownership will remain in the hands of those most experienced and capable of running it on behalf of and in the interests of the Irish people – namely the Dublin Airport Authority. I firmly believe that they should be allowed to get on with the process of running it as well without the need to engage in a wasteful and time consuming tendering process.

It is clear that Fianna Fáil was finally forced to stand up to at least some of the right-wing policies of the PDs because of the results of last year's local and European elections. After the big swing from Fianna Fáil to Sinn Féin, Ahern sent McCreevy off to Brussels, declared himself a socialist and was forced to soft pedal the Government's Thatcherite agenda. This demonstrates that people power can work and it is worthwhile voting.

But a lot more needs to be done, as the issue of Aer Lingus privatisation shows. The Government has slipped it in to this announcement with little or no advance fanfare. The decision to sell off a majority stake in the company is nothing short of an act of sabotage against a vital piece of national and strategic infrastructure. I can't help thinking that this particular announcement today is the price the workers at Aer Lingus and their families as well as the Irish taxpayer is going to be forced to pay to save the embarrassed blushes of the PDs, who didn't get their way on the second terminal.

You only have to look at the debacle surrounding the sale of Eircom, where our telephone network has gone from being one of the best in Europe to one on the poorest, due to lack of investment, and the rip off on the toll roads, to see that the privatisation agenda of this Government in the short, medium and long-term favours the speculative vultures who are only too ready to pounce on attractive state assets, which were built up over the years by the hard pressed taxpayer.

Dessie Ellis

Finglas, Dublin 11

A response to Cormac Juan Breathnach

The loneliness of being German

I am not German. I am Belgian. And my family didn't survive the Second World War unscathed either. My grandfather, a dockworker, was elected as a socialist councillor in Antwerp in the 1930s. He used to organise fundraisers for the republican side in the Spanish revolution, which was brutally crushed with the help of Hitler's army. He was also raising a family of ten in times of depression. During the Second World War he was arrested by the Gestapo for his role in the resistance. In December 1945, my father returned home from a long spell in an English hospital to the funeral of his father. My grandmother was critically ill, after years of malnourishment. Their home was bombed by a V2, Hitler's last weapon intended to secure "final victory". My father was left with his eight younger siblings. A life long socialist, he died when I was in my twenties. I am dead proud of my father, who he was and what he stood for. I am even proud of my grandfather, a man I never knew.

My grandfather wasn't a lonely Don Quixote fighting windmills. He is just one example of tens of thousands of men and women across Europe who stood by their principles, opposed fascism and often paid for it with their lives. Not all Germans aided and supported the Hitler regime, but those who did have no reason to feel proud about their role in history.

Katia Hancke

Dublin 8

Religion

A la carte atheism

Recently there has been much talk about a la carte Catholics, but not a word about a la carte atheists. A la carte Atheists are people who claim not to believe in God but who avail of religion and its functions when it suits them. A typical example is when they swear an oath when taking up public office or when joining the security forces. At least the secularist, Charles Bradlaugh, had the honesty to refuse to take the oath of allegiance to the Crown when elected to the House of Commons, but I can't say the same about the present-day atheist members of the House.

Other examples of a la carte atheists are those unbelievers who say a prayer in times of crisis in their lives, or who play safe by having a cleric attend them when they are in danger of death. For as Hamlet reminds us, conscience makes cowards of us all and we don't know what dreams await us in the sleep of death.

R Farrelly

Killiney, Co Dublin

Conor Lenihan

The Government's true colours

Conor Lenihan's "kebab" remark in the Dáil was, of course, an absolute disgrace; and he should have been sacked straightaway; but lest anybody is under any illusion that this was an isolated incident, this is in fact indictative of this Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats coalition Government's blatant and outright racism.

Many of us would say that this shows us their true colours as this shows us their downright hatred of anything that that is not holy, Roman Catholic and white.

Paul Kinsella

Santry, Dublin

M3

John Paul II and the Hill of Tara

This week Fintan O'Toole rightly declared us a "petty people, afraid to think about big things unless Mother Church is there to threaten us with damnation if we don't". The Church has been largely silent on the Tara issue until now. But for the death of Pope John Paul II, our conversation might be very different

In September 2004 the Meath Chronicle reported that Meath county councillors had agreed a motion "to invite Pope John Paul II to light the Pascal fire (for Easter) on the Hill of Tara as part of his proposed visit to Ireland in 2005". Councilor Alison Byrne, who proposed the motion, said: "It is in Meath that St Patrick, our patron saint, is said to have begun converting pagan Ireland to Christianity and explain the Holy Trinity with the aid of the three-leaf shamrock."

Valerie J Keeley archaeological consultants (VJK) had reported this tradition to Meath County Council (MCC) in their 1999 Archaeological Assessment of the N3 Corridor between Navan and Dunshaughlin. It stated: "In the popular imagination Tara is where the Christian Church, represented by Saint Patrick, won victory over pagan beliefs and established the road to national conversion in the fifth century."

VJK also warned: "The corridor includes one of Ireland's best known archaeological complexes on the Hill of Tara. It is recommended that all sites and their environs as identified be avoided. This recommendation is most strongly urged for the area of and surrounding the Hill of Tara, where current archaeological research is continuing to discover more and more sites."

Minister Dick Roche has granted licenses to excavate and demolish 38 archaeological sites within the Tara complex/landscape, over the objections of hundreds of academics, who have called for it to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. What would Pope John Paul II have said about this decision?

He gave a historic speech to UNESCO in June 1980, in which he said: "use every means at your disposal to watch over the fundamental sovereignty possessed by every nation by virtue of its own culture. Protect it and cherish it for the sake of the future of the great human family."

In a welcoming address to the new Irish Ambassador to the Vatican in 2001 he said:

"The inherited wisdom and resources of Ireland's heritage and tradition, as well as the gifts and talents of its citizens, should continue to provide a sure guide and inspiration for social progress."

But he also gave a warning: "Recent years have brought rapid social and economic change, leading to many positive developments, but also to new and sometimes destabilising demands on individuals and society. In particular, as you have observed, there is a need to discern those trends and changes, which encourage genuine progress while safeguarding the values on which our nation is built. A country is more than the sum of its possessions and powers; it is the cradle and home of a people's soul and spirit."

His passion for national cultural heritage is evident in his 2005 book, Memory and Identity: Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium, "Patriotism is a love for everything to do with our native land: its history, its raditions, its language, its natural features. The native land is the common good of all citizens and as such it imposes a serious duty. Every danger that threatens the overall good of our native land becomes an occasion to demonstrate this love."

"The very idea of 'native land' presupposes a deep bond between the spiritual and the material, between culture and territory. Territory seized by force from a nation somehow becomes a plea crying out to the 'spirit' of the nation itself. The spirit of the nation awakens, takes on fresh vitality, and struggles to restore the rights of the land."

As to the "uglification" of Ireland, also decried by O'Toole, John Paul might have repeated his quote from Norwid in the same book:

"Beauty is to enthuse us for work, and work is to raise us up."

Vincent Salafia

Churchtown, Dublin 14

Heritage battles

Battlefield Ireland

In the space allowed, it was difficult for William Hederman (Village 20 May) to cover such complex heritage episodes with complete accuracy.

GRAND CANAl:

This was a classic case of full-time, technically well-informed public servants nearly out-manoeuvring part-time public representatives. The plan was presented in two quite distinct proposals: the six-lane carriageway essential for the Port and an entirely separate proposal for a sewerage pipe beneath the canal. The councillors were persuaded at a very well-presented General Purposes Committee that it was possible to lay the pipe and restore the canal. Only a phonecall from one obscure, nitpicking councillor to Terence Mallagh of Inland Waterways Association of Ireland revealed that the seal or puddling of the canal, once broken, could probably never be reinstated. "Sorry, lads! Now that the canal cannot hold water, we might as well..." Incidentally, it transpired that the option of laying the pipe beside the canal had not even been considered at that stage.

HUME STREET:

The campaigners were not "literally dragged out by security firm staff". After a long and emotional debate, the occupiers agreed to accept a compromise deal (brokered by George Colley among others) and left voluntarily, if reluctantly. The buildings there now are not the originals but the streetscape and the integrity of that side of Stephen's Green were preserved. Equally important: a clear marker was put down that all future development projects would face a protracted public confrontation with considerable public support.

Without detracting in any way from Ruairí Quinn and Marian Finucane, one should mention the likes of Duncan Stewart and the late Deirdre Kelly. Both sustained assault and physical injury.

Also for mention must be the Dublin Civic Group, who supplied much of the strategic thinking and the moral support.

WOOD QUAY:

Very much less of a victory. It bequeathed to us the warts called the Civic Offices. On a material level, we missed the huge commercial opportunity to out-York York (Yorvik/Eboracum) as easily the most substantial and money-spinning Viking site anywhere in the world.

However, it drove us to accept the Vikings, not just as destructive barbarian intruders, but as part of what we are. With Hume Street, it spurred on the process of developing a much more inclusive (and scientifically accurate) perception of our identity. With the High Street excavations, it urged us to grapple with the fact that even then Dublin had been part of a pro-active, outward-looking network which stretched to Greenland, Russia, Constantinople and Samarkand.

In 2005 in cases such as Tara and the M3, it is both sad and amusing that we face ritual gesticulation and gombeen myopia almost identical to those faced in those old battles. However, hopefully, we are a more self-confident and inclusive people with a deeper appreciation of what it is to be ourselves in all the richness and diversity of our heritage.

Finally, no doubt for his own good reasons, William Hederman does not mention the very important Battle of Upper Leeson Street!

Maurice O'Connell,

(former Dublin City Councillor),

Oakpark, Tralee, Co Kerry