The Taoiseach says refugees must be allowed to seek asylum in Ireland to escape islamic State, also referred to as ISIS, who he says want to "blow up Newgrange".
Enda Kenny says the Co Meath monument, and the Rock of Cashel, would be offensive to Islamic State jihadists.
Speaking to reporters today, he said: "Look at what's happened in Syria with the growth of ISIS. Purely from the historical point of view, they want to blow up Newgrange and the Rock of Cashel, they want children shooting others in the head – this is horrendous."
Islamic State militants have destroyed many archaeological sites, looting them for profit and damaging some to gain attention.
Last month, reports said the group had blown up two nearly 2,000-year-old temples in Palmyra - an ancient Roman site. In Libya and Mali, they also destroyed several mausoleums while Afghanistan they destroyed two 1,500-year-old Buddha statues.
As well as causing the destruction for profit and publicity, the group says sites it destroyed were heresy to its ideology -which is rooted in Wahhabism. They refer to the destruction as "cultural cleansing".
As the Tasoieach made the comments regarding the threats, he also says he's not fixated on what number of refugees Ireland will take - while also denying there's any split in the coalition after Tánaiste Joan Burton declared we should take 5,000 people.
He said: "The normal tradition is that if you bring a refugee to a country and then follow through with reuniting families, the multiplier there is about four to one so we've got to be realistic here. But we don't want to get bogged down in the statistics. This is about humanity."
