Highway to Heaven

In case you thought we were joking a couple of days ago about the Irish government being willing to pave over the Pyramids if it had the chance, consider the news today from Laois:

The National Roads Authority has been accused of desecrating an ancient burial site in Co Laois after the discovery of more than 500 skeletons on the route of the proposed new M7 motorway.

Archaeologists discovered the remains near a previously unknown 7th century settlement at Parknahown near Cullahill. Locals have called for the work to be stopped and the route of the new road to be diverted.

Just out of curiousity, we went to see what the NRA's website says about archeological issues. There is an impressive sounding "code of practice" but the actual document is just a bad PDF scan of a booklet that almost entirely focuses on the relationships between different government entities and says almost nothing about what they do when it looks like they're paving over dead people. Then again, given their antics in the vicinity of the world headquarters of the GUBU blog, we should be thankful that their contractors aren't busy paving over live people as well.