Painting with light: the three most highly decorated kerb stones at Newgrange in gorgeous detail

To celebrate the fact that the Mythical Ireland Facebook page has just passed 30,000 likes, I am revealing these three images of the most decorated kerb stones at Síd in Broga (Newgrange). The photos were taken in the pre-dawn twilight around winter solstice, with the kind permission of the Office of Public Works (OPW). In order to capture these stones in a way that has probably never been seen before, I used an old technique called "painting with light".

Kerb stone 52 at Newgrange, which is diametrically opposite the entrance kerb stone, K1.

My favourite of the three is the above photo of kerb 52 (K52), which can be found at the very rear of the mound, diametrically opposite the entrance kerb stone (K1). I'd only ever previously been able to photograph this stone in daylight. And while I have a couple of nice photos of it, I always longed to use the painting with light technique on it. The image was captured by putting the camera on a tripod and keeping the shutter open for about 15 seconds. During this time, I was "painting" the stone with light using a small LED torch, first from the right and then from the left. The result is an image that I've been waiting for years to achieve. I hope you like it. I have speculated that it contains representations of stars we know today as Orion's Belt and Sirius. At the time of the construction of Newgrange, Sirius was visible from its interior chamber as it transited the roof box.

Spirals on the entrance kerb stone at Newgrange, kerb 1 (K1).

The entrance kerb stone at Newgrange is one of the most famous artefacts from the ancient world, and its design has been photographed perhaps millions of times over the decades. One of the OPW guides at Newgrange regularly tells visitors that "it's the most photographed stone in the world, after Mick Jagger"! Sometimes, especially in midwinter, the evening sunlight catches this stone so that it is illuminated at a very shallow angle, which is the perfect angle for bringing out the relief. I have in previous years been able to get a nice photo using remote flash to achieve the same result. However, I still think that the above image, painted with light during dark twilight, is better than anything I would have achieved during the day.

Kerb stone 67 with its double spiral, triangles and lozenges.

The other of the three most decorated kerb stones at Newgrange, and perhaps the least famous, is this one, kerb 67. It is remarkable that of the 97 huge greywackle slabs that form the kerb around Newgrange, only three are highly decorated. There are carvings on plenty of others, but K1, K52 and K67 are the only stones that feature designs over most of their visible surface. Fascinatingly, there are some stones that are decorated on their rear side, where the carvings cannot be seen.

Brownshill Dolmen: a monumental remnant of the beginnings of modern civilisation, by Lar Dooley

Guest post by Lar Dooley

Brownshill (aka Kernanstown) Dolmen, Carlow, Ireland. A relic from our Neolithic past. I love the irony of the winter wheat just peeking above the ground, a harking back to the singular reason that Neolithic man is so close to our hearts. The first forests cleared, the first ground broken, the first crops grown and harvested.

Brownshill Dolmen, Co. Carlow. Picture © Lar Dooley.

The great seismic change in our gene pool, the change from hunter gatherer to sustained farming began a change in our lifestyle that has led to the birth of civilisation, as we know it. Suddenly man had a foothold on the Earth, one of his first tools used in cutting down forests and planting the first crops. The industrial evolution began, in reality, with the Quern, and the ability to begin to process food.

The great development of stable living and industry allied farming and subsistence living and changed our landscape forever. The first permanent dwellings, the first monuments to the gods, the first celebrations of solar and lunar alignments, the first industrial processes for milling corn and storing crops and farming output, drove us to become sedentary beings.

Brownshill Dolmen is presented with respect, and protected by a fence. Picture © Lar Dooley.

The monumental efforts required to build our Dolmens, our court tombs, our passage chambers and our great ceremonial spaces gave us the basis for religion, industry, civilisation and modern living, and yet we, or at least some of us, see Neolithic man as an ancient pagan relic, as distant from us as the great Neanderthals who emerged from the Ice Age.

Perhaps it is time we paid homage to these great people, who forever transformed our landscape, who gave us the spiritual blessings of a life well lived, who left us structures we would find difficult, if not impossible to build today, without the benefit of our great mechanical construction monsters, on which we depend today.

The cap stone of Brownshill Dolmen weighs about 150 tons. Photo © Lar Dooley.

To simply raise the capstone of this ginormous monument to early man's ingenuity, its 150-ton-plus weight, would take all of our scientific and mathematical prowess, allied to the efforts of a combined force of many human hands, and yet, here it stands, a proud, untouched advertisement to those great achievers, our ancestors.

This dolmen is one of many treated with dignity and respect. A pathway travels round the perimeter of the field, and crosses to a spacious fenced off area situated almost centrally in the pristine fields of corn. This gives the viewer an unspoilt view from both close up and afar, and brings the monument from an ancient sphere, to a modern setting, which benefits both the farmer and the viewer.

Information about the Brownshill portal tomb from the sign at the site. Picture © Lar Dooley.

Would that every ancient monument had such ease of access, and such a pristine view. However, the plodding across fields and up hills also has the beneficial aspects of monuments in unspoilt landscapes, and the benevolence of being left untouched by those for whom respect is a word rarely understood, and less venerated.

Maps of the cairns at Sliabh na Caillighe, Loughcrew

I've created maps of the cairns at Sliabh na Caillighe/Loughcrew, using Bing Maps. The cairns are believed to be older than Newgrange, dating possibly to 3500BC, and were given letter designations by Eugene Conwell, who excavated some of them in the 1860s. The hill known as Carnbane West today was, according to local folklore, known previously simply as Carnbane (from carn bán, the "white cairn"). The hill labelled Carnbane East today was known in the past as Sliabh na Caillighe, the Mountain of the Hag.

The best known of the cairns are Cairn T, called the Hag's Cairn, which is aligned towards sunrise on the equinoxes, and Cairn L on Carnbane, which is aligned towards sunrise at Samhain (November) and Imbolc (February).

For more on the Samhain alignment of Cairn L, see this page.
For more on the equinox alignment of Cairn T, see this page.

Don't forget to watch the video below, in which I give a quick overview of the hills of Loughcrew using Google Earth. This will give you a sense of where the various cairns are located and which are considered the principal peaks. It will also give you a good idea of the location of the cairns in relation to the Brú na Bóinne complex (Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth):

Pictures from the excavation of a 5,000-year-old passage-tomb at the Hellfire Club overlooking Dublin

The excavation of a 5,000-year-old passage-tomb located at the Hellfire Club on Montpelier Hill overlooking Dublin is significant for a number of reasons. It's the first excavation of a passage-tomb in about 20 years, and its location on a hill with sweeping views down across the Irish capital city of Dublin makes it a truly unique archaeological dig.

There are fantastic views of Dublin city from Montpelier Hill, where the Hellfire Club dig is located.

However, the dig, led by Neil Jackman of Abarta Heritage, is significant for other reasons too. Firstly, the dig will help to prove that the monument is, in fact, the remains of a Neolithic passage-tomb. Secondly, and more importantly, if radiocarbon dating is successful, it will be the first time that a monument in the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains cluster of passage-tombs is properly dated. Some of these monuments were excavated in the early 20th century, in pre-carbon dating times.

Visiting children from a Dublin school find out about the excavation at the Hellfire Club.

Regrettably, the monument has been much disturbed and partially destroyed. Large amounts of cairn stones were removed for the construction of a building known as the Hellfire Club, which was originally built as a shooting lodge by politician William Connolly, in 1725. Larger stones, including most of the kerb stones and the structural passage and chamber stones, were believed to have been dug out and broken up as foundation material for the laying of the nearby Military Road about 200 years ago. So the passage-tomb at the Hellfire Club, although it was originally reasonably large in size at c.35m diameter, is now just a shadow of its former self.

The second trench which was excavated at the Hellfire passage-tomb.

However, the importance of the archaeological work is that it will help to date the site - and that will be exciting. For instance, archaeologists will want to know if the site perhaps predates the famous Boyne tombs of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth. Perhaps these mountaintop cairns are as old as those in Loughcrew, Co. Meath, or even those in Co. Sligo.

The polished stone axe head which was found during the dig, being held by yours truly!

Very little remains of the internal structure, for reasons outlined above. However, parts of the central area of the cairn have been revealed during the dig, including some layering of turves, and a large stone believed to have been an orthostat, which was not removed two centuries ago, was also uncovered. One nice find was a polished axe head, which I was lucky to have been able to hold in my hand and photograph during the visit. Neil Jackman said the axe head shows no sign of having been used, leading him to speculate that perhaps it was left in the tomb as an offering.

Archaeologists working in one of the trenches of the ruined passage-tomb.

Because of my interest in mythology and place names, I find it very sad that the original name of this hill, plus any associated mythology, appears to have been lost. The name Montpelier Hill is certainly not Irish, although it has been suggested that the hill might be the place that was known as Suide Uí Ceallaig or Suidi Celi.(1)


Another thing that always interests me about passage-tombs is their relationship to other monuments and landscape features. While I was there, I was able to see that there is a grand vista that takes in huge amounts of the ancient landscape. This vista sweeps from the easy, with Fairy Castle on the mountain at Three Rock, across Dublin Bay to ancient Ben Edair, and taking in views in varying degrees of distance of places including the Cooley and Mourne Mountains, the Fourknocks ridge, Hill of Slane, the Hill of Tara, and even, far to the northwest, the ancient cairn-topped hills of Loughcrew in Co. Meath.

The Fairy Castle passage-tomb in Ballybrack townland, to the east of Montpelier Hill.

The archaeological dig at the Hellfire Club is finishing this week, after just four weeks of work. It will be interesting to see what carbon dates reveal about the age of the site. In the meantime, if you would like more information about the dig, visit the Abarta Heritage Hellfire Club Archaeological Project website.

Special thanks to Neil Jackman for allowing me to visit the site and take photographs. 

Neil Jackman showing a visiting teacher the polished stone axe head.

References:
(1) http://www.askaboutireland.ie/aai-files/assets/libraries/south-dublin-county-library/reading-room/Digital%20Books/Glenasmole%20Roads.pdf

Websites:
http://www.abartaheritage.ie/hellfire-club-archaeological-project/ 
https://www.facebook.com/AbartaHeritage
 

A marvellous vision of Tír na nÓg at Sliabh na Caillighe

When you climb Sliabh na Caillighe (the hill known today as Carnbane East, Loughcrew), it's difficult not to think of what motives and forces inspired a community of people in the far distant past to create great monuments of stone on the peaks of these hills.

Sunset over Carrickbrack and Carnbane West viewed from Sliabh na Caillighe, Loughcrew.

How did they do it? Why did they do it? How did they stay warm up here, on autumnal days like today, when the wind is blowing and bringing water to the eyes? How many people laboured here, in honour of what gods, and at what cost to their physical and spiritual beings? You wonder about what could have driven them to such fabulous exploits, to create these permanent memorials of stone in honour of ideals and aims that we can only feign to understand.

Ambient light streams into the chamber of Cairn T.

But, in the fading light of day, you catch sight of a marvellous vision. The clouds and the sun create a powerful drama, a play on the stage of the western horizon, causing sudden and thrilling changes in colour and light that bring a sense of rapture. You are witness to another dazzling moment in nature's constant dance.

The haze causes the landscape to fade into ever-dissipating layers of mistiness, and the scattered beams of the sun create the impression of a golden opening to something wondrous beyond the cairn-topped hills. Perhaps this is as close as you can get to actually seeing Tír na nÓg. The eye beholds; the mind tinkers with possibilities; and the heart is greatly warmed by the glory of the scene.

And here, at this sanctified spot where the ancestors gathered in the ancient yesterday, you feel like you have made a connection with them, across time and space and landscape. You grasp with the notion of an otherworld in the here and now, one that transcends time and place, so that you can call out to them and they will answer.

And you wish and hope that the landscape will stay like this forever. Forever ancient.

The evening sun over Cairn T (the Hag's Cairn) at Loughcrew.

Welcome to Fourknocks! - a quick tour of ancient megalithic monument in photographs and video

A wide-angle view of Fourknocks from the northeast. It was excavated and restored in the 1950s.

Fourknocks is a small megalithic passage-tomb on a ridge in southeastern County Meath, about 9 miles (14.7km) miles from Newgrange. The passage of Newgrange actually points towards Fourknocks, although neither site can be seen from the other due to intervening hills. There were two mounds excavated at Fourknocks by archaeologist P.J. Hartnett in the 1950s - this one, labelled Fourknocks I, and a nearby mound known as Fourknocks II. The latter was found to contain a cremation trench, where it is thought the remains of the deceased were cremated before being placed in Fourknocks I. This is a small selection of photos and a video from Fourknocks I, showing several of its features.

The short passage leading into a large, egg-shaped chamber with three recesses.

The entrance lintel stone has been placed on its side in the chamber for protection.

The western or right-hand recess. It is the largest recess and has a small plinth stone within.

A view towards the entrance, showing the lintel (left) and the "guardian" stone (right) illuminated.

Zig-zag carvings on a lintel above the interior of the passage. Their meaning is not known.

Concentric circles on another stone near the passageway. The stone is known only as Stone B.

Honouring the ancestors at Fourknocks.

A faded spiral on Stone B.

Lozenges and zig-zags on the lintel of the southern (end) recess.

Don't forget to watch this short video from inside Fouknocks. It gives a brief idea of the size of the monument and some of the features inside.

The story of the Cailleach of Loughcrew and its meaning

Many of you have probably heard the story of the Cailleach (hag or witch) of Loughcrew. The hills of Loughcrew are scattered with the remnants of a vast cluster of megalithic monuments that are thought to be up to 5,500 years old. There are four hills - all containing monuments, mostly megalithic cairns and passage-tombs. These are known today as Carnbane West, Carrickbrack, Carnbane East and Patrickstown Hill. The hills, three of them at least, were collectively known in the 19th century as 'The Witches Hops', and in the 17th as 'the Calliagh Steppes'. In some versions, Carrickbrack is omitted, and in the 15th century the remaining three were referred to as Trí Choiscéim na Caillighe, the three footsteps of the hag.

Climbing Carnbane East to see Cairn T, with (in the left background) Carrickbrack and Carnbane West.

There is an old poem told about the Cailleach of Loughcrew, that goes like this:

I am the Chailleach Beara
Many wonders have I seen
I have seen Carn Bawn a lake,
though tis now a mountain green. (1)

The story about the Cailleach tells how she came from the north and she tried to jump from hill to hill, some say from the Carnbane (the westernmost hill) to Patrickstown (the easternmost), alighting on the other hills in between. If she could succeed in this magical feat she would obtain great power. She was carrying an apron full of stones. As she jumped from hill to hill, she dropped some stones from her apron, forming the cairns on each of the peaks. When she reached Patrickstown (which is undoubtedly a Christian name, and perhaps we might some day learn what its original name was) she fell and broke her neck. According to Jean McMann, in her lovely little book Loughcrew - The Cairns - A Guide, a pile of stones at the bottom of the eastern slope of Patrickstown Hill was known until recently as the cailleach's grave.

In earlier times the hill we know today as Carnbane West was known just as the Carnbane (Carn Bán, the white cairn or the white heap of stones). The hill known today as Carnbane East was, it seems, known as Sliabh na Caillaigh, the mountain or hill of the hag/witch.

Cairn T on Carnbane East, formerly known as the Hag's Carn and Sliabh na Caillaigh.

There is no doubt in my mind that the story of the Cailleach of Loughcrew contains essences of an ancient creation or origin myth. This great woman, whose status has been reduced to an old crone, was probably a goddess of the land who was greatly venerated in ancient times. McMann says of her:

'This cailleach is famous in Irish folklore. Other storytellers have described her as a superhuman woman who could harvest a field faster than any man, a crone lamenting her youth, a banshee announcing a death, or a Christian nun. She is best known as Cailleach Bhéarra, but has been called by many other names, including not only Waura but Beri, Buí and Vera ... and may be a later version of the ancient pagan sovereignty queens whose consent was required for kings to rule. Some scholars think she represented wild nature, as a prehistoric earth goddess'.

Michael Dames, writing in 'Ireland, A Sacred Journey', suggests that "the apron is the divine womb, translated into the language of dress".

In this context, we can see the apron as a womb of creation, and perhaps, in the tradition of Marija Gimbutas, we can think of the cairns not so much as tombs, but more like wombs. As a creation or origin myth, the story of the Cailleach of Loughcrew shares some similarities with another origin myth, that which tells about how the River Boyne was formed. In that story, Bóinn approaches Nechtain's Well, something which is forbidden for a woman. The well gushes forth into a fountain, carrying Bóinn along as it creates the River Boyne. Bóinn is mutilated by the waters - she loses an eye, and her arm and leg are broken. Eventually, she is washed out to sea, where she is drowned. Her lapdog, Dabilla, is transformed into the Rockabill islands. In both cases, a female deity is credited with an act of creation, and in both cases at the end of the act of creation the women are killed.

But there is more to the story of the Cailleach of Loughcrew than meets the eye. I'm inclined to think that the imagery of a woman jumping from hill to hill forming cairns is, perhaps, some memory of an ancient astronomical system in which the sun and moon were seen to rise up out of various hills and cairns when viewed from other parts of the complex, and conversely they were seen to "set into" hills and cairns from other vantage points. I'm inspired in this aspect by the Cailleach na Mointeach, the "Old Woman of the Moors" at the Callanish stones in Scotland. The local people there refer to her as the "sleeping beauty" and once every 18.6 years, the moon at its major standstill southern extreme rises from some part of this sleeping beauty and sets again at the bottom of Mount Clisham. (2)

Until 1980, little was known about any astronomical aspect of the Loughcrew cairns. But in that year, Martin Brennan and Jack Roberts discovered the equinox alignment of Cairn T, during which the light of the rising sun on the equinoxes shines into Cairn T (photographed on left) and illuminates what Brennan described as "solar emblems" on the stone at the rear of the chamber. They also discovered that the chamber of Cairn L appeared to be aligned towards the November and February cross-quarter sunrises, and several other small cairns appeared to have alignments towards solar events. In some cases, the passage of a cairn is pointing towards another cairn. For instance, from the chamber of Cairn I on Carnbane West, the sun appears to rise over Cairn T on Carnbane East  at the beginning of September.

The imagery of a woman, or goddess, jumping from hill to hill is, I think, possibly symbolic of a system of alignments from various parts of the megalithic complex, focusing on sunrises and moonrises, and also sunsets and moonsets. In the fullness of time, I think an even more comprehensive study of the alignments of Loughcrew will reveal an interest in the extreme lunar declinations, the minor and major standstills of the moon. At Dowth, for instance, my own studies of the alignments of its two known passageways indicates that the setting moon at both its major and minor southern setting positions might have been the primary, or even shared, targets of the southern and northern chambers, while the setting sun at winter solstice (southern chamber) and November/February cross-quarter days (northern chamber) were also targets. Perhaps the death of the Cailleach is allegorical, referring to the lunar extreme, and perhaps the "death" of one 18.6-year cycle and the beginning of the next one? The fact that she was said to have "come from the north is also interesting, because of the fact that the maximum northern rising and setting extremes of the standstill moon are located in the far northeast and northwest.

Until a more comprehensive study of possible lunar alignments at Loughcrew can be undertaken (and I must admit I would be very happy to be involved!) we can only reflect on the possibilities. We know that there are certainly solar alignments. We can't be sure that these alignments were an intended principal function of the monuments, but they constitute a fascinating and indeed almost mystical aspect of these ancient structures. To be lucky enough to have been witness to some of these alignments makes me feel an extraordinary connection with the builders.

We cannot know how far back the story of the Cailleach of Loughcrew goes. Certainly as Jean McMann acknowledges, "People have probably been telling stories about the Loughcrew hills for more than five thousand years".

Is it too bold a step, to wild a conjecture, to suggest that the story of the Witches Hops or the Cailleach's Steps is in fact some remnant of a very ancient myth, one which goes right back to the time when these cairns were constructed?

The illumination of solar emblems by equinox sunrise at Cairn T.

Addendum - watching the moon

Of interest to our discussion about lunar standstills at Loughcrew is the fact that a society carefully observing and recording the moon's cycles would become aware of several things. The number of sidereal months (the time it takes the moon to complete a circuit of the sky, ie from a particular place on the Zodiac back to the same place again) and synodic months (a particular phase back to same phase, eg full moon back to full moon) does not fit neatly into a solar year. 12 synodic months is 11 days short of a 365-day solar year. In fact, the number of lunations only fits the solar year after 254 sideral months, or 235 sidereal months, which is equal to 19 years. This 19-year cycle is known today as the Metonic Cycle. See this page for a further discussion of the Metonics.

Observers watching the Metonic Cycle would also naturally become aware of the rotation of the moon's nodes, and 18.6-year cycle during which the point where the moon's path crosses the sun's path (the moon's path is inclined to the ecliptic by 5.15 degrees, so its path intersects the sun's path at two points in the sky each month) appears to complete a full circuit of the sky. As this happens, the moon appears, at certain times during this 18.6-year cycle, to go through maximum and minimum extremes, which are observable by the moon's rising and setting places relative to the sun's solstice positions. When the moon's node is located exactly on the sun's solstice positions, there is a likelihood of eclipses occurring at the time of the solstices. Conversely, when the moon's nodes are located exactly on the sun's equinox points, not only is there a likelihood of eclipses at the time of equinox, but the moon's path will be at its maximum separation from the ecliptic at the sun's solstice positions. If the moon's declination is at that time within the range of the sun's path, we get what is termed the "minor standstill", while if its declination is outside of the sun's range, we get the major standstill.

It is possible the builders of Cairn T at Loughcrew were not exclusively focused on the equinox sunrises, but also on observing the moon, and in particular at those times when its node was crossing the ecliptic at the sun's equinox points. If this is the case, as we can merely speculate, then we can envisage observers within the rear recess of Cairn T watching for the rising moon at such times. The natural extension of this argument is that if  the moon is visible through the aperture of Cairn T and is in the same position in the sky as the equinox sun*, then seven days later (i.e. one-quarter of a circuit around the sky), the moon will be at its major standstill rising position (provided it is on its ascending node when visible within Cairn T) or at its minor standstill rising position if it is on a descending node. In other words, the Hag's Cairn might have been used to indicate the times of the extremes of the moon, when an 18.6-year cycle was ending (the death of the hag?) and a new one was beginning.

(* Around the time the cairns were built. the spring equinox sun was positioned in the constellation we know today as Taurus, the bull, while autumn equinox sun was positioned in Scorpius.)

Explore Newgrange virtually with this fantastic 3D model

Do you live thousands of miles from Ireland? Yearn to see Newgrange up close but cannot afford the air fare? Fret not. Technology now enables you to explore it from afar....

Newgrange by Seán Doran on Sketchfab

 

This fantastic model, created by Seán Doran and shared on Sketchfab, is based on images of the famous Stone Age monument that were taken from a drone by Matthew Kelly. The model is easy to navigate. Use your mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Left-click and drag to move around the model. Right-click and drag to move the centre of the model.

Enjoy this opportunity to see Newgrange up close, without having to make the journey half way around the world!

Spend a few minutes at Newgrange enjoying the sights and sounds of evening in this beautiful video

This is a video of Newgrange in the evening time in summer. It's such a tranquil and beautiful place to spend time, as this video shows. Listen to the sounds of the birds and the animals and take yourself to this sacred spot overlooking the Boyne for a few minutes of bliss.

It is strongly advised that you watch this short video in full screen mode in high definition and with either good speakers or headphones. Enjoy!

The huge monoliths of Ireland's Stonehenge were buried

Monument was thought to have been completely destroyed some time between 1748 and 1907

However, some of its largest stones might have been buried

For years I have been drawing attention to a monument, sadly destroyed, which has been dubbed 'Ireland's Stonehenge'. This was a remarkable and unique monument consisting of several concentric circles of stone, surrounded by a large earthen embankment, all of which was encompassed by ten enormous monoliths.

Ireland's Stonehenge was documented by antiquarian and astronomer Thomas Wright in 1748. His drawing is the only known representation of this once great monument, which was located in a townland known today as Carn Beg, not far from the town of Dundalk, in the north of County Louth. I first wrote about Ireland's Stonehenge in 'Island of the Setting Sun' in 2006.

A 3D recreation of the stonehenge (right) by Kerem Gogus.

This huge monument vanished from existence some time between Wright's drawing and brief description of it in 'Louthiana' (1748) and the construction of the Drogheda to Portadown section of the Dublin-Belfast railway line in 1855. Historian Henry Morris, writing for the County Louth Archaeological Journal (CLAJ) in 1907, gave us a tantalising insight into what the monument's purpose might have been when he wrote: "I have read or heard it stated somewhere that this place was the site of a school of astronomy. Its position on the plain, with a semicircle of mountains around would enable an ancient astronomer to observe and mark the places where the various heavenly bodies appeared on the horizon at different times of the year." Regrettably, Morris was unable to recall the source of this valuable detail.

Wright's all-too-brief description of this remarkable monument, from Louthiana.

Not long after Wright's drawing was published, the Armagh Road was built, probably in the 1750s, and there can be no doubt that this was a significant factor in the destruction of the stone henge. I overlaid Wright's drawing of the monument on to Google Earth imagery of the site and this makes it obvious that at least some of the monument was flattened for the purpose of the new road.

A crop mark of the monument on
a CUCAP photo from 1970.

I remember reading somewhere (although I cannot now recall the source) that the smaller stones were taken away and either broken up to be used as foundation material for roads, or were used as gate posts. Henry Morris could find no remains of the monument in 1907, saying that it was "Gone! Cleared away, its very site not exactly known". (For much more information, and sources, see Island of the Setting Sun - In Search of Ireland's Ancient Astronomers, chapter 5, 'The Giant Rings'.)

It wasn't until 1988 that the exact location of Wright's druidic temple was finally rediscovered. Archaeologist Victor Buckley was able to discern the monument's "footprint" in an aerial photograph which had been taken in 1970 for the Cambridge University Collection of Aerial Photographs.

There was some archaeological resistivity was carried out at the site in 2006, in advance of a proposed housing development which never happened once the Irish economy collapsed. Standing at the site, which is now part of a disused golf course attached to a hotel, it is very difficult to get any sense that it was anything other than a field. There are simply no stones remaining. None.

However, I've recently discovered something significant about what might have happened to the large stones - or at least some of them - in the most unlikely of sources.

Reading George Henry Bassett's 'Louth County Guide and Directory (1886), we find that early on, he makes reference to the area's antiquities:

The remains of antiquity are very numerous, and extend through every part of the county. They continue in very much the same condition that they were found more than one hundred and twenty-five years ago by Thomas Wright, author of Louthiana. His work was instrumental in stimulating the curiosity of many of the residents of the county in regard to the precise nature of the contents of the Danish and Irish forts and Druidical camps.

In this work in progress, digital artist Kerem Gogus has fantastically recreated
Ireland's Stonehenge in 3D based on Thomas Wright's 1748 drawing.

And here comes the most valuable information pertaining to what happened this once marvellous monument:

It had not the effect, however, of preventing a tenant, near Dundalk. from effacing the Druidical circle at Ballynahatna. Of the ten stones which were said to represent the generations from Adam to Noah, only one now stands in the original position. Most of the rest were dropped into holes sunk behind them, and covered at a sufficient depth to escape the plough.

This is most interesting. Bassett says that instead of bring broken up, like the smaller stones, the large ones were dropped into huge holes to bury them. This is quite exciting as it leads to the possibility that at least some of these large megaliths are still there - buried where they once stood. Perhaps this is information which might lead archaeologists towards further investigation of the site at Carnbeg?

Further reading: Ireland's Stonehenge

Note: I am indebted to Kerem Gogus, the 3D artist, for all the effort he put in to recreating Ireland's Stonehenge so that we might get a better sense of what it looked like. Visit his website here:

http://keremgogus.com/

Science and mysticism - the genius of the Stone Age

The more insignificant modern man becomes - on his shrinking earth, hardly a cosmic speck - the more arrogant he is. He feels far less humility toward the ever-vaster unknown than his forefathers did toward what was thought to be known in a flat, God-ruled, man-centred universe. Science does not seem to touch man's emotions at all: he loses his religious awe and acquires in its place only a boastful complacency about himself. His intelligence grows, but not his genius.
- Philip Freund.

The photo shows a symbol carved into the stone at the very rear of the chamber of Cairn T, Loughcrew, Ireland. It was likely carved there more than 5,000 years ago, by a society of people for whom, I believe, science and spirituality were not considered as separate things. Indeed, I believe our ancient ancestors expressed their genius by grafting huge edifices in stone, lasting memorials to a time in the story of humanity when people had what Fruend refers to as "inventive mind, poetic aspiration, and awe-filled heart" - and yet they watched and measured the movements of the sun, moon and stars. They were, in my opinion, equally adherents to empiricism, metaphysics, philosophy and mysticism. They were farmers, engineers and astronomers, but they were most likely also poets, diviners and shamans, as suggested in mythology. They were both scientists and mystics.

I believe that they saw themselves as one with a cosmos that was vast beyond comprehension. They were neither athiest nor agnostic - but held a deep hope and belief in the existence of an afterlife. The great mounds of the New Stone Age are the best physical exemplifications of this belief. At the end of life, the burnt or unburnt fragments of the individual were lovingly and delicately placed in the chambers of these sacred spaces, from which, it could be implied from the construction and alignment of these monuments towards the rising and setting places of the heavenly bodies, the soul of the deceased was magically transported to the next realm.

The people who built the temples of stone that are Cairn T and its sisters on the ancient hills of Loughcrew, and indeed the vast monuments of the Boyne, which mark a zenith of that society, did so, I believe, in unity and zeal towards a shared belief. Joseph Campbell said that the "awakening of awe, that awakening of zeal" is what pulls people together.

In relation to the great cathedrals of Europe, Campbell said "you mustn't think of slave drivers; that isn't what built the cathedrals. It was a community seizure, a mythic zeal."

The same is probably true for the mound builders.

So what happened to the culture that dedicated itself to fervently building these innumerable mounds and cairns across ancient Ireland?

In the words of Campbell, "the zeal disappeared".

In my opinion - and it is just an opinion - our sense of the cosmic, and the awesome, and the everlasting, and the transcendental, became diminished when we became fascinated with the material, and the corporeal, the earthly, the ephemeral. When bronze arrived, and later iron, we perceived that we need not dream of otherworlds to give us power. We could fashion gleaming possessions - decorative and combative - and this gave us a sense of our own authority over nature. We could transform the murky raw materials of the earth magically into jewellery and weapons. We became alchemists, magicians. We no longer needed to divine our place in the cosmos and in the frantic and at times incongruous schemes of life. We could, we believed, impose our own will upon it. Spirit moved aside a little - or was pushed - and ego took centre stage. This conflict of spirit and ego is perhaps best epitomised in the battle between the Tuatha Dé Danann - the owners of the sídhe/mounds - and the Milesians, who came from Spain to take Ireland from them, driven by mixture of revenge and a jealous longing for a country that they beheld as being so beautiful it looked like the clouds of heaven.

Instead of the Dé Danann Elcmar, who stood on top of Newgrange at Samhain with a fork of white hazel, the archetypal mystic - a diviner, a druidic wise man - we became the Milesian Eremon, who wished to take ancient Tara and impose the domination of a new force upon the land. The symbol of that imposition would become the Lia Fáil - the phallic stone of kingship that would scream when the rightful king placed his foot upon it. And thus at Tara even today it is possible to discern the transformation that occurred after this battle between spirit and ego. The old ways are represented by Duma na nGiall - the Mound of the Hostages that rises out of the earth like a pregnant belly, the mother who is at once part of both world and cosmos. The new ways are represented by the Lia Fáil, the phallic stone placed there in an act of imposition, declaration, and perhaps banishment. We shouldn't be surprised to think that the Neolithic culture was a matriarchal one - its stone chambers are somewhat uterine in design - although we get the distinct sense of a polytheistic society when we take account of mythology which may or may not date to that remote time. But the cultures that followed - in the Bronze Age and Iron Age - created enclosures and ramparts encircling the sacred hill that I believe attempted to make a statement that - instead of considering the monuments to be an extension of the earth, saw the earth as being enclosed within a new system of ownership and dominance. We were no longer an emergence from cosmos. We were an imposition upon it.

The Lia Fáil - the phallus - is another icon of imposition, and the patriarchal nature of that imposition. We planted it there as a symbol of our wish to claim ownership, dominance and control over the land. We did similarly when we planted a flag on the moon. We went there at considerable expense in the greatest single achievement of our era, but we did so as much as as an act of imposition and ownership as we did as an act of scientific exploration or altruistic humanity. We want to own the moon.

To be continued . . .

© Anthony Murphy, 2015

One of my best shots of Newgrange to date

I just realised that although I've been keeping my Facebook page up to date, I have not blogged in a while. So here goes. A beautiful image of Newgrange taken yesterday towards sunset. This is one of the best shots of Newgrange I have taken to date. Very pleased with the result.

Latest podcast: Newgrange and the place name 'Bro' or 'Broe' - from Brug na Bóinne, its ancient name

Above is my latest podcast, which this week focuses on the place name 'Bro', also written 'Broe', which is found at Newgrange and in its vicinity. William Borlase, in his 1897 second volume of 'The Dolmens of Ireland', refers to this name and talks about how local people at the time pointed out that the field in which Newgrange sits was called 'Bro Park', or Brugh Field. This could relate to the old name of Newgrange, Brú na Bóinne, originally Brug na Bóinne.

To hear the podcast, just click on the arrow in the orange circle above. The piece is just under five minutes long. I have recently started doing short audio clips about Irish myths and monuments, mostly related to the Boyne Valley. If you'd like to hear more of these, please do let me know. There are several ways to contact me:

1) Add a comment to this blog post.
2) Email me at mythicalireland@gmail.com
3) 'Like' the Mythical Ireland page on Facebook and interact there
4) Follow me on Twitter

I'd love to hear your feedback. Thanks.

The search for Amergin and Drogheda's Stone Age past

Drogheda Museum / Old Drogheda Society
Special HERITAGE WEEK lecture

Is Millmount really a passage-tomb? 

THE SEARCH FOR AMHAIRGIN – Looking deep into Millmount’s past …

By Kevin Barton & Conor Brady
THURS 22 AUG 2013 – 8pm
Governor’s House, Millmount Cultural Quarter

Using the latest geophys technology Drogheda Museum begin a year-long project to look deep into the ancient mound at Millmount in a search for Drogheda’s Stone Age …

It is thought that the mound at Millmount in Drogheda was originally part of the great Megalithic (“large stone”) Culture which flourished in the Boyne Valley from 5,000BCE to 2,000BCE and includes the internationally-famous tombs of Newgrange and Knowth. Its importance in our collective folk memory is underlined by the legend that the mythological figure Amhairgin (pronounced “Aver-gin”) the originator of song and poetry is buried there.

Because of the huge amount of structural changes on the mound over the millennia normal archaeological excavation is impossible but now through the wonders of modern electronic remote sensing (“geophys”) we can scan deep into Millmount and begin to unlock its secrets.

Leaders of the Project Team, Kevin Barton of Landscape & Geophysical Services  and Conor Brady, Lecturer in Archaeology at DKIT will launch the research programme with a special lecture in The Governor’s House Millmount on Thursday 22 Aug 2013 at 8pm.

In Early Irish mythology Amhairgin ("aver-gin") was the inventor of song and poetry as implied in his name ("Amhair"=singing; "gin" = give birth to). The extraordinary poem/song associated with him, Duan Amhairgine (The Song of Amhairgin), was therefore regarded by the Old Irish as the first song ever made and was always placed first in collections of poetry.

The power of this poem in Old Irish is such that a whole array of famous poets in many languages have attempted translations. Among them was the great English poet Robert Graves who said that “English poetic education should, really, begin not with Canterbury Tales, not with the Odyssey, not even with Genesis, but with the Song of Amergin.”

Many composers and songwriters have also set versions of the text to music including this one in the original Old Irish by Lisa Gerrard (of Dead Can Dance) from the BBC series "The Celts".

Stunning skies over Dowth this evening . . .

A stunning evening sky over the Neolithic passage-mound of Dowth this evening.

Given that the mythology of Dowth is all about an eclipse which plunges the land into darkness, and that the name of Dowth - Dubhadh - means 'darkness', one might wonder why mankind ever grew afraid of the dark when the sky gives such glorious displays as this one. I spent around three hours this evening at Dowth, a place I deeply love. Unlike Newgrange and Knowth, it has not been excavated or reconstructed in modern times, and the tourists/visitors are few and far between, especially in the winter.

I was hoping to get a photo from the top of Dowth looking at the sunset towards Newgrange. However, the sky was almost completely overcast when the sun went down. However, as night came in the clouds started to break up quite nicely, allowing the stars to shine through. I got busy finding a location where the sky would form a dramatic backdrop to the mound.

What I particularly love about this shot, and some of the others that I took, is that the clouds seem to mimic the profile of the mound and trees. The orange colour of the clouds is light pollution from the town of Navan, some 10 or 12 miles to the west. They gave a dramatic contrast to the deep blue of the sky's afterglow.

The shot below was taken five minutes later. The sky was darker, but the clouds were brighter! Light pollution is becoming a major problem in Ireland.

Beautiful Dowth winter shots from Anne Marie Moroney

For some years, a row of evergreen trees growing to the southwest of Dowth has gradually blocked the light from the setting sun at Winter Solstice entering the southern chamber of the Neolithic cairn. However, a couple of years ago, with the permission of the land owner, there was some trimming of the trees which allowed sunlight back into the chamber - with glorious results, as can be seen in these photos, which were taken by Anne Marie Moroney in early January 2011. Anne Marie, author of 'Dowth - Winter Sunsets', has been studying the phenomenon for years.