Bremore

Archaeologist raises fears over new port site;

DROGHEDA Port Company`s plans for a new deep water port at Bremore near

Balbriggan have run into controversy after a leading Meath archaeologist

said that the chosen site was of huge archaeological and historical

significance and could have been the place where St Patrick first landed

in Ireland.

The company plans to build the major new port at a cost of €300 million.

However, Meath archaeologist Professor George Eogan, known for his work

on the Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth archaeological sites, says that the

area contains a unified prehistoric cemetery of mounds that extends for

over a mile, from Gormanston, north of the Delvin river, to Bremore,

which is to the south of the river. The river marks the boundary between

Meath and Fingal.

He said that Bremore had the appearance of being a landing place for

early people coming to Ireland and that passage tombs were the likely

burial places for people coming from the Iberian peninsula.

The site at Bremore had been surveyed by Professor Etienne Rynne from

NUI Galway in 1960 but has not yet been excavated.

Professor Eogan told the Irish Times: "This does not detract from the

importance of Bremore and Gormanston. There`s enough evidence to say

that it`s contemporary with the Boyne Valley. I would be concerned about

the destruction of irreplaceable monuments."

The Neolithic cemetery of passage tombs at Bremore has been the subject

of a preservation order for over 30 years and any development of the

site would need to appropriately protect the monuments. It is thought

that the tombs are of similar antiquity to the oldest monuments in the

Boyne Valley, perhaps dating back to 3,000BC.

Professor Eogan said that in addition to the archaeological significance

of Bremore, there was also evidence that it was around the mouth of the

Delvin that St Patrick landed in Ireland for the first time, making it a

historically important site. He pointed out that there were several

alternative locations along the east coast for a port of the kind

proposed by the company.

Drogheda Port Company has invested significant resources to its plan for

the port, in conjunction with Treasury Holdings and the major Hong Kong

conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa to develop a modern deepwater port, with

an initial capacity of 10 million tonnes of freight per annum.

In January this year, the Government announced that it wanted to speed

up the process of planning for the port and transferred compulsory

purchase powers for the acquisition of lands by the Drogheda Port

Company to An Bord Pleanala. The port company has a target of a year

from now in submitting a full planning application and it hoped to open

the new port by 2012.

The Drogheda company has set out the ambitious expansion plan because it

says that it has run out of spare capacity. It says that a full

assessment of the area would be carried out before any application for

planning permission was lodged.

Meath Chronicle 27th March 2008