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Established
16/3/2000 |
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Evening of Stone for Lughnasa at Tara a success
Reported in the Meath Chronicle, August 4th, 2004:
AN Evening of Stone at the Hill of Tara to celebrate the Festival of Lughnasa last Friday turned out to be a bigger success than the organisers had anticipated.
Over 200 people arrived at the hill and made their mark for history. Visitors had been asked to bring a stone which was to be included in the restoration of The Village Wall, which will be part of an entry to the Meath County Council Pride of Place Initiative.
The ceremony at Tara continues a long tradition going back thousands of years which saw stones being brought to the hill. While the wall may not rival the Great Wall of China, the meithealserved to bring together a group people of diverse interests, but with the common aim of making their own little piece of history at Tara.
The names of all those who brought stones on Friday - families, the elderly and the young - are entered into a book which will be included in a time capsule to be inserted in the wall by Maurice Casssidy and his sons Enda and Mark who are carrying out the building work.
Most of the names will be from Meath but stones were also brought by people from Kerry, Clare, Galway and from the mouth of the Boyne at Drogheda. The gathering of the stones was taking place under a full moon (known as a "Blue Moon"), the second in the same month, and a phenomenon which will not be seen again until 2007.
One of the members of the Friends of Tara Group, Michael Slavin, said that the ceremony was a huge success. "We expected about 50 people but 200 or more turned up. There was great excitement and it turned into a real community effort."
"It is intended that a 40-foot section of the wall will be restored first and the remaining 100' will be described as "a work in progress'." By bank holiday Monday, a fine pile of stones had been gathered but more were still coming in.
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