Return of harp to Tara's hall mooted

DÁIL RELOCATION:MOVING THE Dáil and Seanad to a reconstructed Tara's hall on the Hill of Tara was the proposal of a New Zealand-born writer, who lodged $100,000 in a Dublin bank for that purpose.

William Edward Patrick O’Donnell wished to move Irish government in 1975 back to the ancient seat of the high kings of Ireland, and he deposited the money, the profits on land deals in Florida, in an Allied Irish Bank account in Dublin, in trust for Dáil Éireann.

The donation, he believed, would be the first of many millions from other well-to-do expatriates once the project was under way.

“The way to build up the Irish economy is through contributions from people now scattered throughout the world,” he told Richie Ryan, the minister for finance, according to State papers.

“The great sum which will be required for this development will, when placed in circulation, restore the economy of Ireland,” he said.

“When the level of the economy in the Republic of Ireland is raised so that prosperity is equalised throughout the whole of Ireland, the Ulster problem will automatically disappear.”

O’Donnell’s offer was declined by Richie Ryan, who told him that the Hill of Tara and the Hill of Slane were national monuments and development around them was strictly controlled.

“The architectural content of the ground around them and the general topography of the sites are not interfered with,” the minister said.

Later documents from the file show O’Donnell was eventually persuaded to part with his money for other purposes. A memo made by then taoiseach Jack Lynch in August 1978 said he had met O’Donnell, “a very old man”, on a visit to New York and had thanked him for agreeing to donate $100,000 to the Ireland Fund, a fund set up in the US in 1976 that appealed for financial support for Ireland from Irish-Americans.

“He did not refer at all to his earlier idea of having government buildings erected on the Hill of Tara,” Lynch said.