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LOCAL HISTORIANS HAVE hit out at plans to demolish a Waterford ring fort that dates back over 5,000 years.
US firm West Pharmaceutical Services began building a manufacturing plant on the Knockhouse site earlier this week.
The tri-vallate ring fort will be cleared during the second phase of the development, which the company says will deliver about 150 new jobs once the factory is opened in 2018.
While company-funded archaeologists will record and preserve any valuable artefacts found on the site, the rocks supporting the ancient monument will be levelled to make way for the new plant.
Unique site
As construction on the land gets underway, local historians have established a new Facebook page to raise awareness of its archaeological importance.
“It’s an incredible site,” local historian Chewie Cusack told TheJournal.ie.
Only about 3% of Ireland’s ring forts are tri-vallate, which makes this place quite unique. It should be protected or at least left as a green area during construction.
Cusack said he was disappointed that Waterford City and County Council, which approved the multi-million euro development, had allowed “commercial interests” to override concerns about the site’s preservation.
Lar Power, the council’s director of economic development and planning, told TheJournal.ie that it was “fully supportive of the resolution of the ring fort at Knockhouse”.
This site has been zoned for strategic industrial development for many years in the full knowledge of the presence of the ring fort. The work being completed is to fully resolve the site and record the findings.
He added that the development “has the full approval of the National Monuments Service, and is being carried out under full supervision and in accordance with best practice”.
Licence to clear land
Emily Denney, a spokesperson for West Pharmaceutical Services, confirmed that local authorities had sanctioned the land as a strategic industrial site.
The company agreed to pay for archaeological work on the ring fort, which it was aware of before the site’s purchase, she said.
Denney told TheJournal.ie that the National Monuments Service had issued the company with a licence to demolish the ring fort, while recording and preserving any artifacts found on the land.
A process of post-excavation analysis will be carried out before a final report on the excavation will be shared with the public. We hope this information will add to the public’s knowledge of and appreciation for Waterford’s rich archaeological heritage.
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Bonuses all round for the Irish Water top brass. Hundreds of millions being handed over to them and they can’t fix the simplest of things. Can you just imagine handing over your hard earned money to those wasters?
@David Corrigan: we do already hand our hard earned money over to them
@CP: True CP. But they wanted more.
@David Corrigan: they are funded by central exchequer , your taxes, not a magic money tree.
@David Corrigan: you do that with each pay packet…
@David Corrigan: Irish water is funded through the Exchequer via General Taxation, SF and other opposition parties pressured the government into it. In fairness Irish water, they have being in exsistance 12 years and have got through a huge amount of work. They took over a national service with a crumbling infrastructure. A infrastructure was was long ignored and underfunded by every county council in the country. I’d say the money spent by IW over the last 10 years if far higher than the previous 50 years before that.
@David Corrigan: hi David, hate to be a bore but could you detail your simple fix and associated costs and timeliness for completion please.
@Liam23: What utter BS. MM, then leader of the opposition, called for the suspension of water charges in exchange for a confidence and supply agreement with FG in 2016. Nothing to do with SF or ‘ other opposition parties’. As usual every siht show, in every sector, in this country is down to FFG.. nobody else.
Shush with these sort of articles, the public have bought into our “it’s all the farmers fault” mantra, they don’t need to know it their own waste their drinking.
@P. V. Aglue: “An ecosystem is a relatively self-contained community of interacting organisms and the environment they live in, and interact with. There is a flow of energy within an ecosystem and nutrients within it are recycled. There are both living (biotic) components and non-living (abiotic)components within an ecosystem”
2030??
Are they kidding?
This is a serious risk to public health.
Newport, Co. Mayo, has increased in population, has more “bums on seats” and the raw sewage is piped out a short distance into Clew Bay only for the tides and currents to bring it all floating back up the Blackoak river every day. On a high tide the discharge bubbles up the drains in the streets and houses near the water and I don’t need to describe the putrid odour. Fishing, swimming or kayaking is impossible.
She said 16 towns and villages emitting raw sewage every day in Ireland. I think she’s taking the p is, there are that many in every county. But they’ll keep blaming the farmers a handy scrap goat.There are 9 villages within 10 miles from me, 3 of them have treatment plants, the rest store it up and let it off by night, or some of them at high tide
@Max: It’s the chemicals that seep into the water, pray tell how that is anything but farmers’ fault?
@Brian D’Arcy: there’s more nitrogen in the atmosphere than there’ll ever be in water
@P. V. Aglue: does it poison waterways while suspended in the atmosphere?
The state can pollute to it’s hearts content but there’s blue murder if the farmer puts a foot wrong. It’s high time the state officials got the same treatment the farmers have been subjected to for many years now.
Green party taxes….the hypocrisy!
How many workers does it take to change a light bulb? None. We have an essential street light out of order for 3 years in Dublin. Where are our taxes really going?
Also in skerries. Half a km right of shenick. There’s a stream there. It’s awful smelly.
@Argus Romsworth: and loughrea in Co. Galway. Raw sewerage flowing into the local river for the last 60 years and from the “new” treatment plant since it was opened. How many more are omitted from the list?
Imagine the private sector faced such scrutiny.
Imagine fining yourself? Which is what we are essentially doing. How quickly would you change your ways? If UE can’t be bothered to fix these problems in a timely manner, then I’m all for using my tax monies to employ someone who can. It’s like the Metro, China said they would build and manage it, but we refused. If we can’t do something ourselves without wasting billions on it, it might be time to hold up our hands and admit defeat, then commission somebody who can get the job done.
How can I swim in the rivers with disgusting sewage!? A disgusting disgrace
Not to mention what comes out of Mary Lou !
@Dave c: Yawn, must have taken you all day to think that up.
Problem all across Europe. I saw raw sewerage coming out of the overflows on the street in Lanzarote while I was there a few weeks ago
@Peter Byrne: I think that was the volcanic Ash.. the people are very clean in lanzarote
Longford , includes pharmaceutical waste
Stopping the raw sewage from Leinster House should be the priority!
The usual NGO mouth pieces have traps sewn shut today.
Blame climate change that’s the green media answer to issues they report on, a but the green politicians tend to be looking the other way on this one.
Government is the problem
Some KIP
have your say