Heritage Week!

Heritage Week.

There seems to be an impressive number of events on around the county that celebrate different aspects of our local heritage and all to the good, and not forgetting certain poets listed for Tara on Sunday, but you could well argue that much of what lies around us that is of historical interest has fallen into ruin or was never commemorated in the first place. Almost every parish or town brought out a local history a number of years ago, to celebrate the Millennium, and many of these were excellent in that they highlighted events, or people, that would otherwise be forgotten. I remember walking through a bookstore once, in a far and distant place, and picking up book about William Johnson and although I'd grown up and gone to school in this area he was never mentioned. Likewise for many other events. You can drive past a crossroads and see the remains of some monument falling into rubble or a famous hill quarried away. Much of the preservation seems to depend on local interest. Towns like Dunshaughlin and Summerhill to mention just two, do not have information boards listing places of what are in some cases of national importance. On the Hill of Tara for instance, tourists stand and gaze off into the distance and there is nothing to tell them what they are looking at. There is a good argument to be made for teaching local history in primary schools in that it would be valued more and there would be a more immediate reference, and perhaps some of the destruction we have witnessed over the past decades would be less likely to take place in the future.

Photo: Ringlestown Rath Kilmessan Co. Meath.