Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

My colleague, Deputy Tóibín may or may not be here. If he is not, I will not take the full allocation of time.

This is an important Bill that is being discussed in regard to the preservation of our national monuments which are singularly involved with our ideas of culture and heritage. Apart from the idea of identity, of understanding who we were and who we are and maybe who we will be in the future they point to the ambitions that have been arrived at in this country over nearly 2,000 years. They are very important to the idea of Ireland in the future in terms of tourism and the economic perspective also.

We have a unique offering that is unlike anything else in the western world, in the sense of having a history that goes back almost 5,000 years. It is therefore important we keep an updated register and programme on dilapidation and understand how we are supporting these monuments.

I will speak about Waterford for a moment. We have five individual museum experiences that are all built around the historical narrative from the Bronze Age to the Vikings to the Normans and right up to date. I pay special tribute to our museum curator, Eamonn McEneaney, who retires this year after nearly 35 years of diligent service not only to Waterford and the south east but also to the national archive and record. I worry about who is going to lift the mantle after he goes because he has been an incredible servant in the context of the preservation of the records of Ireland and our native history.

We have a Viking experience in Waterford. It shows how technology can be integrated to interpret the monuments of the past. We have a 3D hologram and virtual reality programme that is very successful. It is done in conjunction with support from the South East Technological University. That is the way history must be explained to the next generations for them to glimpse what it would have been like to be living in a Viking house or tower maybe 1,000 years ago. It is something I would like to see being rolled out in other areas. It is the best way to make the historical record contemporary. With regard to the Viking experience to which I refer, and as Mr. McEneaney knows well, we have a site that has not been looked at or surveyed in any great detail in Waterford. It came up at the time of the motorway expansion. A large number of artefacts were taken from it. There remains great positivity around that site and there was some discussion of bringing in researchers who are well aware of the Viking experience to come and see. This settlement is potentially the oldest of its kind in the world outside Scandinavia. We should try to propel that as there is a great amount of learning to be had from it.

Waterford is replete with historic monuments and I worry about how many of them are actually on the record of monuments. In my parish, we have two dolmens, namely, those at Knockeen and Gallstown. If I travel to west Waterford, I can visit Ardmore castle. My parish, Butlerstown, has Butlerstown Castle, which is one of the finest tower castles and dates back to Norman times. To my knowledge, the OPW has done no work on that castle in 40 years. The only work that has been done was by the owner of the land on which it sits. He has tried to keep that castle in some way right. I made inquiries of the local authority in the past year about trying to get some remediation work done on it. There is ivy and other plant life growing out of the walls. Straight away one understands the problems of regulation. We could bring in a SOLAS or local employment scheme group in to point the walls, but they are not allowed do it as they must be certified to work on monuments. In order to do that, a study must be done on the monument and then the funding must be secured. That is not easy because it is through the local authority and it really only has funding to do two or three schemes a year. This leaves us in the position of the landowner trying to maintain the site, which is one of the finest examples of a tower castle in the country, outside Bunratty. He has already poured money into it. There must be a way to satisfy the two demands. What happens when a landowner does not want to open a site to the public 365 days a year, but there is a need for it to be properly preserved for the national record? I ask the Minister of State to ask his officials what can be done to expedite that requirement. As I said, Butlerstown is one of the finest examples of a Norman tower castle anywhere in the country.

Waterford is the oldest city in the country. It was originally a Viking settlement and later became a walled city under the Normans. We have had initiatives in the city where people have tried to engage in commercial development. Where that impinged on the local walls, it ran into trouble with the heritage officer. Subsequently, commercial development was brought to a halt. We must find a balance between trying to retain what we have in our monuments and history and having that live side-by-side with our contemporary economy.

The regulation and reservation seem to be a problem. On the national monuments, how many Norman settlements are registered around the country, and especially around the south east? I am thinking of two tower castles, one of which is in Grannagh, County Kilkenny, and the other near Kilsheelan, by Clonmel. It is beside the Dove Hill Design Centre. I passed that tower castle for 30 or 40 years. Ivy is growing out 60 ft from the ground and the walls are crumbling. To be fair to the landowner, he has probably sectioned it off because it is unsafe to visit. It is just being allowed become dilapidated. Once these structures are gone, they are not coming back. Making them new is not an option. People want to see the history of what was there. I ask that we find some way of collating these buildings and prioritising them for some remediation. We must prevent water ingress and stop ivy growing out through the walls.

State funding is an issue, and so is education. How do we make this history we have, which many of us grew up with, germane to this generation who are captivated by modern technology and TikTok videos of what is going on in the rest of the world? Maybe the historical narrative is not something they are that concerned with now, but it will be in time. The question is how to make it real and we can do that, but we need to have education pointing in this direction, especially in our national and secondary schools. I am sure we all went through the challenges of Ferdia, Gráinne, Cú Chulainn and all that. I do not know how much of that is taught in the modern syllabus. It is a pity because while it speaks to an Ireland long ago, it is still to be seen in our public realm.

I am certain the Minister of State will be aware of the old agricultural phenomenon of the lios field. The lios field was often a fairy fort. One sees them in parts of the country where the farmers who were sent to them refused to bulldoze them. The old farmers would tell you that you would get bad luck for taking out the fairy fort and to not go inside and sleep in it, because the fairies would take you away. That is what I was told when I was a child. Those fields are still there, but there is no support for farmers or anybody else in respect of them. They must cultivate the land outside them. They are given nothing for the fact there may be a half acre of land they could do something with. More importantly, they must be collated in the record because they are such an important part of our rural landscape. The same goes for Ogham stones and dolmens. As I said, there are two dolmens very close to where I live. One is in an excellent state or repair and the other not so much. Again, these artefacts are becoming difficult for people to visit because landowners have had, for their own reasons, to stake off the lands and try to restrict access because people were going up and littering, having bonfires and parties and all the rest of it. We need to find some way to protect all of that to which I refer.

The most important thing we need is an up-to-date record of the significant monuments. I am sure it does not reflect the full historical value of what we have in any county. We then need a programme to try to identify those that are most seriously in need of remediation. We can do that. I am not sure we need people who are qualified archaeological stonemasons to try to support some of these structures. If we are waiting for all that, they will have fallen down by the time we get to that point. I ask that we look at some of the regulation around this. There is a rich and diverse history here that must be maintained for the people. It must be accessible. Whatever the Bill does in terms of giving the Minister oversight of projects that are included or excluded, we should keep the historical record alive. Long after we are gone, the coming generations will see the value of this in far greater detail than we do.

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