How is this possible? Who cares if there's "lack of public support". A completely unique 6000 year old site that provides evidence of early farming technology, right now when the climate is collapsing? How is that not interesting? Protect the fucker www.independent.ie/irish-news/c... - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

blindboyboatclub.bsky.social • 41 days ago

How is this possible? Who cares if there's "lack of public support". A completely unique 6000 year old site that provides evidence of early farming technology, right now when the climate is collapsing? How is that not interesting? Protect the fucker https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ceide-fields-ditched-as-possible-world-heritage-site-due-to-lack-of-public-support/a2008703104.html

Comments

noflashingneon.bsky.social•41 days ago

This happens all the time. The round towers, the high crosses, the Georgian core of Dublin...propose them, make no plan to protect them, languish 10 years on the tentative list til everyone forgets they were ever nominated.

anrai-mac.bsky.social•41 days ago

There's a very easy solution here, CREATE PUBLIC TRANSIT LINKS!!!!

lisagdub.bsky.social•41 days ago

‘there did not appear to be unanimous local public support for the nomination at that time’ is so mealy mouthed - how was the support supposed to ‘appear’? Does it have to be unanimous? Protect it anyway ffs

unak.bsky.social•40 days ago

We were never consulted! Unless I didn't get the memo, but nobody else seems to have either. It's more profitable to put Wind farms, within spitting distance on groups that certainly are the same as the Ceide Fields, on Lacken Hill. It's absolutely shameful.

dezlink.bsky.social•41 days ago

Theres gonna be a lot more of this kind of craic in the next few years.

blindboyboatclub.bsky.social•41 days ago

Why do you think that is?

dezlink.bsky.social•41 days ago

Have a read of the Heritage 2030 plan.
https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/778b8-heritage-ireland-2030/

paulcleary.net•41 days ago

maybe they needed to send in a better photo?

binsmuth.bsky.social•41 days ago

It would never have occurred to me that those decisions took anything like public support into account. How ridiculous. They're either inherently worthy of the status or not surely.

bothaboy.bsky.social•41 days ago

We should start by treating it as if it was a World Heritage Site & then rest follows.

Most Irish people have no idea of its significance as earliest evidence of Neolithic farming & that evidence was found in a barren field in Mayo.

What’s there today isn’t what was there in past … learning pt..

blindboyboatclub.bsky.social•41 days ago

They'll worship tomatoes on a wall in drumcondra but they won't declare a 6000 year old farm a world heritage site. This is the type of shit that will turn me into the priest who hijacked a plane for the third secret of fatima

mophead1.bsky.social•41 days ago

this is why i follow you

blindboyboatclub.bsky.social•41 days ago

When Gerard of Wales was justifying the colonisation of Ireland in the 1100s, one big complaint was that we were "savage" and didn't know how to farm. This site shows that we had field systems 2500 years before the rest of Europe. That's like finding out that people had cars in ancient egypt

blindboyboatclub.bsky.social•41 days ago

Mayo literally means "Plain of Yew Trees", but there's no Yew Trees anywhere.Do you think there might be a connection between that, and ye also having evidence of an ancient technologically advanced civilisation who turned forests into fields?There's your interesting story to drum up public support

cjayfla.bsky.social•41 days ago

That’s the thing. According to some Eco-totally-not-fascists, we were sinners to ever clear the ancient forests.

sub-bourbon.bsky.social•41 days ago

smells like a podcast

blindboyboatclub.bsky.social•41 days ago

Mayo makes all of the worlds Botox. Every famous person you see with Botox has directly injected some of Mayo into their face. That's a given. Draw a connection between preserving rich peoples faces and preserving yere 6000 year old farming sites. That's an easy PR campaign

is-mise-rich.bsky.social•41 days ago

I had to Google this tomato thing despite being able to see the bridge from here. This is a good example of how artificial the internet is. I heard nothing of this trend in the real world.

100% agree though, this "public support" requirement is nonsense.

bridbreathnach.bsky.social•40 days ago

As a resident of the area you should see the excuses the council have given us and laid all responsibility on the community to come forward to council to retain and forward the area as a heritage site coincidentally there are at least 3 wind farm applications for the area 🤔

janetravis.bsky.social•41 days ago

“Regrettably, there did not appear to be unanimous local public support for the nomination at that time.
Is this another way of saying someone objected?

tmneff.bsky.social•41 days ago

There are other ways to protect and celebrate the site besides UNESCO World Heritage, which is a highly regulated franchise. Quite a few places have let UWH lapse rather than keep up with the intrusive bureaucratic requirements. You can lose your status if your gift shop isn’t new enough.

mxmorningstar.bsky.social•41 days ago

Have we tried asking people outside of Mayo? I didn't know there were so many bloody experts on the subject in one county lol I'm sure there's a swell of interest amongst the greater human population to keep protections on a site of unique historical significance,no??

rashlols.bsky.social•41 days ago

We're at the point of late capitalism where we can use lack of public intrest and or awareness to manufacture consent 😅

mzdt.bsky.social•41 days ago

oh, so they're applying populism to the sciences now?

FFS.

oldtimerarmy.bsky.social•41 days ago

you can lead a horse to water. 😢

niamh-smallchange.bsky.social•41 days ago

The Ceide Fields are an amazing record of farming life pre-dating the pyramids by, I think, 2000 years. The location, on the North Mayo cliffs, with views of Downpatrick Head, is stunning. Ireland needs to diversify its tourism locations so that people see more than Temple Bar and the Blarney Stone

niamh-smallchange.bsky.social•41 days ago

Mayo County Council should be ashamed of itself. They seem to be saying that unanimous public support is required before they would back the application. So if 1 nimby complains, that stops the process.

alopexdog.bsky.social•41 days ago

I'd love to know what "lack of public support" means because if it turns out it was some online survey that nobody advertised I honestly wouldn't be surprised. Anyone I know in Ballina would know of it and encourage you to visit.

lauramadigan.bsky.social•39 days ago

Getting Unesco World Heritage Site status would have protected the site indefinitely from damage, either by direct development or by proxy from local area development. The cynic in me thinks local landowners surrounding the site might’ve had an economical incentive not to support it.

alopexdog.bsky.social•39 days ago

I really hope that's not the case but I know it's happened before. I couldn't imagine the land there being useful for anything to be honest. It's extremely boggy, close to a cliff edge and battered by the Atlantic. Someone more knowledgeable would have a better idea though!

lauramadigan.bsky.social•39 days ago

Well it may be no use for grazing or housing, but land is land and there are many ways to skin a cat as they say. Someone else posted this in the thread, they could be onto something.

https://bsky.app/profile/joecluxton.bsky.social/post/3lfmpv5npcs2y

alopexdog.bsky.social•39 days ago

I never thought of that. I'm a big supporter of renewables but not at the expense of our heritage!

ncdjs.bsky.social•41 days ago

I think the point is that this is part of the Unesco criteria:
"Evidence of local community and stakeholder support for World Heritage status are critical requirements in respect of applications to the tentative list."

joecluxton.bsky.social•41 days ago

"There is, however, no substantive evidence to support this contention or no evidence that the council took any meaningful, proactive steps to engage with the wider community to elicit or garner support.”

joecluxton.bsky.social•41 days ago

“A Freedom of Information request by this group has established that Mayo CC failed to respond to several correspondences from the Department of HLG & Heritage inviting the council to submit an application to have the Ceide Fields and the Boglands of North Mayo maintained on the UNESCO List”

joecluxton.bsky.social•41 days ago

"To date, no satisfactory explanation has been offered by Mayo County Council as to the reasons not to re-apply other than to claim there was a lack of local support” https://www.independent.ie/regionals/mayo/news/group-concerned-about-increasing-number-of-large-scale-windfarm-projects-proposed-in-mayo/a646391648.html

roisinl.bsky.social•41 days ago

“There didn’t appear to be…” They mustn’t have bothered to ask.

unak.bsky.social•40 days ago

They didn't!

roisinl.bsky.social•40 days ago

Not surprising. Mayo County Council officials know what’s best for everyone 🙄

unak.bsky.social•40 days ago

Yes, seems that way!

bmurr88.bsky.social•41 days ago

200 house planning application gone in for that land. Build to rent to.

blindboyboatclub.bsky.social•41 days ago

You're not serious are you?

rogermellie.bsky.social•41 days ago

He’d post evidence if he was serious (hopefully)

kellyenv.bsky.social•40 days ago

Total bull

unak.bsky.social•40 days ago

That's absolutely untrue, we are fighting to prevent a wind farm just beside it!

bmurr88.bsky.social•41 days ago

No I am not serious. I couldn’t resist the open goal.

Love the pod tho 🙌

joecluxton.bsky.social•41 days ago

Can’t find any reference/link to PA for houses. But people are concerned about the possibility of wind-farms being built in the area. https://www.independent.ie/regionals/mayo/news/group-concerned-about-increasing-number-of-large-scale-windfarm-projects-proposed-in-mayo/a646391648.html

joecluxton.bsky.social•41 days ago

"There has been no engagement from either Mayo County Council or the wind company developers with the communities and people whose ancestors have protected this unique heritage down through the ages.”

bmurr88.bsky.social•41 days ago

You can’t go from heritage site to fucking a wind farm surely but if the envelope is big enough they just might

joecluxton.bsky.social•41 days ago

Hopefully it will never happen.