This article was first published in the Tara Foundation Winter magazine of 2007/8.

This article was first published online in 2004.

Circumventing the Irish parliament

Article based on letter sent to Irish papers, July 2005

This article was first published in the Tara Foundation blog on September 25 2009.

The decision delivered by the Supreme Court on 21st December 1972 was not only relevant to deciding the specific issue of the State's purchase of land in close proximity to the Hill of Tara, but is of lasting significance with regard to what exactly is to be regarded as a national monument.

It is emergency legislation, like so many other initiatives by the State in recent years, designed to avert a "crisis", i.e. the fact that the Constitution presents an obstacle to "progress", meaning that it stands in the way of the implementation of the State's big project, and must be flouted by any means possible. ... The Constitution, in so far...