Since 2001, the Office of Public Works has been engaged in a major reconstruction of the fort of Grianan of Aileach in Co. Donegal. According to an OPW spokesperson, "Local repairs were carried out [in 1904, when the monument was placed in the care of the British state] …but, due to the unsatisfactory nature of the restored external masonry works and rubble/earth centre fill, sectional collapse continued at regular intervals. …A specialist structural engineering and archaeological survey undertaken by OPW in 2001 revealed the lower 'original' sections of wall and confirmed the reasons for the monument's instability. The original inward leaning and stable profile and line of the Grianan wall was established and the monument is now being restored to that design. The present intervention should considerably improve the future stability of the monument and ensure safe public access to the site.”
    
Much the same pretexts were offered by the OPW for the programme of massive reconstruction underway at Skellig Michael. As in that case, on the basis of sheer conjecture (“the original inward leaning and stable profile”), the Grianan is being altered beyond recognition because the OPW conforms to a general State ideology that dictates its policy with regard to heritage. This ideology holds that conservation is not about preserving the monument as received, respecting each historical addition and layer as themselves of historical importance, and, where preservation work is deemed to be necessary, ensuring that it interferes with the existing structure as little as possible, preserving a clear distinction between the original and what is added. On the contrary: “conservation” is about deciding how a monument should look, should have been built, and actively reconstructing the monument to fit that judgement. Such an approach is not preservation at all, but destruction of the entire history of a structure - which by definition includes all the stages in that history, including past renovations. To decide, for instance, that the restoration works carried out in 1904 should simply be swept aside, even if they were inadequate, is an act of gross irresponsibility, as it shows no real interest in preserving the monument as a historic building.

As a result, not just the shape but the very nature of the Grianan is being changed: the curved dry-stone corbelling which has endured 2000 years, is being pulled down and rebuilt flat and straight, directed by, of all people, an architect employed by the OPW. But worse still is the fact that, while the foundations were perfectly adequate for a dry-stone structure, it is not adequate to support what it is being changed into. Owing to “the instability of the underlying surviving stonework”, reinforced concrete supports have been placed at the base of the rebuilt sections over the lintels of the internal passageways, and the platform and the top of the wall. The original dry stone structure was flexible enough to adjust to settling of the foundation, but now that the exterior wall has been “reinforced” with concrete, it is in principle (and by design) inflexible, so that, so far from reinforcing the structure, the rebuilding works have made a collapse much more likely. Stones which were removed from the wall of the Grianan during reconstruction, and formed a considerable pile at the south-west side, have disappeared from the site; likewise, quantities of stone which were displaced during the reconstruction of the monastic settlement on Skellig Michael have also mysteriously vanished from the island.

One might be forgiven for thinking that the ultimate destruction of these sites is the intention: the OPW is part of a State bureaucracy which thinks nothing of ploughing a motorway through the Tara-Skryne Valley, or through a medieval castle, to force the rezoning of valuable land for bloated shopping centres, such as Blanchardstown or Liffey Valley, or industrial wastelands like Park West in Ballyfermot. To this bureaucracy, heritage is something to be either swept aside entirely when there is a profitable pretext, or else created anew in accord with totalitarian cultural values. The differences of the past are to be eliminated, so that there will be no alternative to the sameness of the present.