Archaeological Impact
A large passage tomb, lying west of the railway line at Gormanston. It still contains a large number of kerb and chamber stones. The tomb is hugely significant regarding Neolithic farmers who arrived at the Delvin River, long before they moved up to create the passage tombs at Fourknocks and the Boyne Valley. Photo by Andrew Collins Photography.
Remains of passage tomb on Gormanston Strand. The tomb here was eroded over many centuries and millennia since it was first constructed over five-thousand-years-ago. Photo by Community Historian Brendan Matthews.
One of the last remaining Kerb Stones from the Passage Tomb on the cliff face overlooking the Delvin Estuary. Photo by Community Historian Brendan Matthews.
This proposed project not only jeopardises the environment and natural beauty of the area but will also destroy the rich historical landscape and heritage. In addition to the numerous known protected archaeological sites in the area, this historical landscape also contains unexcavated and undocumented neolithic sites. The potential destruction of important archaeological sites, both onshore and potentially underwater, demonstrates a reckless disregard for our collective past and any additional understanding to the historical narrative of this island.
The Gormanston Cemetery of passage graves is linked to that of the Bremore passage graves. Archaeologist Dr Mark Clinton, Chairman of An Taisce’s national monuments and antiquities committee said back in 2009 when a port at Bremore was first mooted: - “In this regard, and given their morphology and geographical location, there’s every possibility the builders were the near ancestors of those that built the nearby world-acclaimed tombs of Brú na Bóinne [the Boyne Valley tombs].” Dr Clinton said the two cemetery complexes proposed to be incorporated by Drogheda Port under the 2009 Harbours Act “must be considered within the greater context of other passage tombs nearby at Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth. Hence we believe it is far more appropriate that the World Heritage Site of Brú na Bóinne would be extended to include the Bremore-Gormanston complexes rather than their obliteration as a result of an ‘extension’ for ‘development’ of Drogheda Port.”
Moving the proposed port north by a few hundred metres to Gormanston Beach is incomprehensible and unconscionable.