Newgrange: Monument to Immortality being reprinted

I have received good news from The Liffey Press. Newgrange: Monument to Immortality is currently being reprinted, following its recent selling out. The first edition was published in 2012 and is now sold out. The new print run should arrive at the distributor on 16th November, and so should be available in the shops shortly afterwards.

This is the second of my non-fiction books to sell out. Island of the Setting Sun - In Search of Ireland's Ancient Astronomers was first published in 2006 and sold out in 13 months. It was republished as a second edition in 2008 and has since sold out again, but regrettably is not being republished at this time. I would like to see Island being republished as I think it will continue to sell for years to come.

'Newgrange - Monument to Immortality' is out of print, but the good news is it's being reprinted for November

Newgrange Monument to Immortality.

Some very significant news (and opportunities hopefully) on the publications front. My book Newgrange: Monument to Immortality has sold out. This is very positive news and shows how popular this work has been as an alternative avenue into exploring Ireland's most precious ancient treasure. The even better news is that I've just spoken to The Liffey Press and they're going to do a second print run, which should hopefully be available some time in November.

This is the second time one of my books went out of print. Island of the Setting Sun (with co-author Richard Moore) sold out in just 12 months after its initial publication in 2006, and was revised and expanded and republished in early 2008. HOWEVER, Island of the Setting Sun also recently sold out (again), and in this case it is not being republished by The Liffey Press. So I will be seeking an alternative publisher as I believe this book will continue to sell for years to come.

On the fiction front, my novella Land of the Ever-Living Ones is almost out of print and although it is available for Amazon Kindle, I would like to have it reprinted in hard copy format. This simple story of a lovely dialogue between a young boy and a wise sean-draoi (old druid) set in ancient Ireland has proven very popular and has received some very positive reviews. Here's one from Amazon.com:

Having read Anthony's excellent non-fiction titles, I was enthusiastic about his foray into fiction. What a treasure! I smiled, laughed, thoughtfully let tears run down my cheeks and didn't want it to end! Sometimes I felt myself telling the story of the seandroi, others I was the young, rapt listener and throughout felt that this is how history is supposed to be conveyed. My wife and I rarely like to read the same genre but I had to share this with her and she loved it too! Anthony, please publish in hardcover so this wonderful gift can be passed on and on!

Anthony Murphy's books - non-fiction (left) and fiction (right).

Further to all this, my first full novel, The Cry of the Sebac, has not yet been published in hard copy format, although it is available on Amazon Kindle. I would LOVE to see this book in print and believe it has a very strong message for today's world from the myths and megaliths of ancient Ireland. Here's a brief summary of The Cry of the Sebac:

One boy can be more powerful than an army.

A boy meets a mysterious talking bird, a floating hawk who claims to have lived forever. Guided by the bird, he glimpses his own destiny. He alone must save mankind from rushing over the precipice to his doom. The boy will have to prevent an apocalypse. But how? The bird, who calls himself the Sebac Gaoth (Hawk on the Wind), takes him on an extraordinary journey through mind and space to meet the Tuatha Dé Danann, those who are foretold to come to the aid of man for a battle to save the world. In the process of revelation, the boy helps the Sebac to realise something of his own origins and destiny.

On top of all of the above, I am continuing research into another work of non-fiction, which will be based on some of the most ancient myths of Ireland, offering new insights and tracing the creation and origin myths of this ancient island. I'm hoping to make progress on this book during the coming winter, all going well.

Click on the video below so see footage from the launch of Land of the Ever-Living Ones in 2013:

Links:
Newgrange: Monument to Immortality - Amazon reviews
Land of the Ever-Living Ones: Amazon reviews
Island of the Setting Sun: Amazon reviews

"Voices of the Dawn - landscape, stars and stones" - a talk by Anthony Murphy to Mythic Links in Dublin

I will be giving a talk in Dublin on Thursday 27th October. I will be a guest of the Mythic Links group and will be showing lots of photographs (some of them not seen here on the blog) and indeed talking about the myths, monuments and astronomy.

The talk will feature photographs of the megalithic and sacred sites of the Boyne Region (and a couple of others) and the talk will focus on various aspects of the sites, including the mythology, symbolism, alignments, astronomy and archaeology of each. I will be showing pictures not yet seen on the blog or any of my social media sites. There will be lots of photos in particular from Newgrange, Knowth, Dowth, Fourknocks, Hill of Tara and Loughcrew.

Here are the details from Mythic Links:
SPEAKER: Anthony MURPHY – Author & Photographer - Creator of mythicalireland.com – New Light on the Ancient past- An illustrated talk
Anthony’s books include: ‘NEWGRANGE: Monument to Immortality’, “The Cry of the Sebac“; and “Island of the Setting Sun” by Anthony Murphy & Richard Moore.

VENUE: United Arts Club, 3 Upper FITZWILLIAM St., Dublin 2
TIME:Register 7.15 pm-Please arrive early-places limited [starts 7.30pm]
ADMISSION: €10 [ donation towards venue & overheads ]
PARKING Free from 7pm
Tea, Coffee & Bar available in the Club before & after the event.


http://www.mythiclinks.com/
http://www.mythicalireland.com/

'Above Below' - a documentary about Newgrange author Anthony Murphy and his fascination with the monuments

This is a segment from a half hour documentary about Newgrange Monument to Immortality author Anthony Murphy and his journey from being a newspaper journalist into writing books about the ancient monuments of the Boyne Valley.

The film was made by local film maker Martin O'Donoghue. In this segment, Anthony talks about his many visits to Newgrange and discusses some of his personal insights into this ancient wonder. He talks in particular about how he wanted to write a book devoted to Newgrange, having included the monument as part of a wider look at the ancient landscape in his first work, Island of the Setting Sun.

The project is a precursor to a much  larger, full-length documentary film on the subject, exploring the meaning of Newgrange to people today. Planning for that larger film has begun.

A screen shot from Above Below with Anthony Murphy.

My new novel 'The Cry of the Sebac' has just been published for Amazon Kindle

It gives me great pleasure to announce that my new novel, 'The Cry of the Sebac', has just been launched on Amazon Kindle.

I am the Sebac Gaoth,
the Hawk on the Wind,
one who has lived beyond memory.
I have listened to the tune of the earth
since before time began
but the music of the world grows sad.

A 12-year-old boy called Fintan meets a mysterious talking bird who claims to have lived forever. The bird, who describes himself as the Sebac Gaoth (the Hawk on the Wind), wants to warn the boy about the danger facing mankind, and to bring him to a fantastic revelation about his own origins and destiny.

The Sebac is a manifestation of ancient wisdom. In the Irish mythic tradition, the hawk appears as a shamanic presence, a voice from the ancient world. The boy represents innocence, but Fintan is about to come of age, and his experiences with the Sebac mark an initiation of sorts, a transition from ordinary mortal to the heroic figure of salvation that mankind desperately needs.

But what can one boy do in the face of such tremendous adversity?

As he journeys through mind and spirit and cosmos, the boy meets several of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Prophecy says they will help man in one final battle against darkness. But the Dananns have their own ideas about who the Samildánach (the Many-Gifted) is, and they want to reveal the one who will shine light into the darkest places and battle to prevent the fall of mankind.

You can purchase the novel on Amazon.com here:
http://www.amazon.com/Cry-Sebac-Anthony-Murphy-ebook/dp/B01DE75Z50/

And on Amazon.co.uk here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cry-Sebac-Anthony-Murphy-ebook/dp/B01DE75Z50/

You might also want to check out my author page on Amazon, and indeed my other books:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B001JOY804

The writing continues. Always, the writing continues

As long as I can remember, I've been writing. While it's true that all children learn to write from a young age anyway, I think I developed a love for it from the moment I first picked up a pencil. Not content with handwriting as a means of putting words down on paper, I soon developed a love of typing. And all this before the arrival of the modern home computer. In those pre-computer days (it's difficult to believe how much has changed in the last three or four decades), I used my father's mechanical typewriter. That was difficult, because my skinny, youthful fingers did not have the strength to depress the keys, so I developed a two-fingered approach, banging away at the keys with my left and right forefingers. This might sound like a slow method of writing - slower perhaps even than handwriting - but I soon became quite proficient at two-finger typing.

My dad had one of these cool typewriters - the Olivetti
Valentine. It's what I learned to type on.

Years later, I still have some of the typed sheets from my childhood. I wrote about different things, but in my tender years, with my age still in single digits, I mostly wrote about the stars and the sky. Even then, I couldn't make up my mind whether I wanted to write fiction or non-fiction, so I wrote both. My first foray into the world of publishing came while I was about 11 years old. I started writing a column called 'Skywatch' for the Spectrum magazine, a monthly publication included with the Drogheda Independent newspaper, which was at that time edited by my father, Paul. He was editor of the Drogheda Independent from 1985 until the end of 2001. He is now 71 and still writing for a newspaper. Needless to say, when it came to writing, I didn't lick it up off a stone.

Eventually the computers came. The typewriters disappeared and a new revolution came. I began working as a reporter for the Drogheda Independent in 1994. The internet eventually arrived, and the personal computer also progressed in leaps and bounds. (Anyone remember Windows 3.1.1? Or the dreaded Windows 95?) The computer keyboards allowed me to develop a variant of touch typing. I started using more fingers to type. Consequently, because I was typing every day, I became quite adept. I learned to type without looking at the keyboard. Apparently in those days it was considered quite a skill. My kids now comment about it. "Dad, I can't believe you can type so fast without looking at the keyboard." I tell them that if they type often enough, they will eventually develop this skill. Who knows how many words I've written in my life so far? It has to be several millions. It could be several tens of millions. I really don't know.

Despite the fact that I have spent a lifetime writing - sometimes professionally, sometimes as a hobby, sometimes as an author - I am acutely aware that the transition from pen and paper (or typewriter and paper) to computer is not all positive. Despite our technological advances, we must admit that computer storage not a permanent medium. There are lots of articles online about this very fact. If you want to safeguard your writing, you should make sure to print everything you write. It's the same with photos. If you want to save them for future generations, make sure you get good prints made. Hard disk drives are prone to failure. Very prone. Storage media including CDs and DVDs have a finite lifespan. It's important to preserve your work - if indeed you or anyone around you deems it worthy of preservation.

A case in point is my first book, 'Island of the Setting Sun - In Search of Ireland's Ancient Astronomers', which I wrote in conjunction with my good friend Richard Moore. I did all the writing, on an Acer laptop. Now I still have that laptop, but it stopped working a long time ago. The motherboard failed. I was able to rescue the hard drive, but even that has failed in the interim. Now, it's not a big crisis because the book was published. Thankfully. But my point is that, without a printed book or even a draft printed manuscript, the book that I laboured over for years would be lost to time.

Writing as I have done about ancient stone monuments like Newgrange, the thought has often struck me that perhaps the single best way to preserve writing so that it might potentially survive for centuries and millennia into the future is to carve it into stone!

In the autumn of 2014, I began writing my latest book - a novel. I was concerned about the fact that at the age of 40, I was perhaps letting time slip by too quickly without being productive as a writer. It's important that the writing continues. The writing must continue, always. Most of it will never see the light of day, and that's OK. So long as the art is being practiced. If even a small percentage of it gets published, that will be good enough.

I work in Dublin. I have to commute to and from Drogheda. I have a very busy life outside of work, what with my involvement in the brass band, in amateur radio, in photography and in so many other things, not least my young family. It wasn't practical for me to bring a laptop everywhere so that I could write in whatever spare time I could find. So I took a decision. I was going to bring a notebook with me at all times. This would serve two purposes.

A collection of some of the notebooks I've been using.

Firstly, it would allow me to write at times when it might not be otherwise practical to whip out a laptop and start typing away. So, for instance, I found myself writing on the way to work in my brother's car in the mornings. We car-pool, so he drives one day, and I drive the next. I could get several hundred words written on the morning commute. Then I wrote at lunchtime. Some days, I would sit in the car in the car park at work and scribble away to my heart's content. Sometimes, I could go up to the Grand Canal and sit on one of the locks and write away. Occasionally I would drive to the Phoenix Park at lunchtime and sit in the car up there, scrawling in my notebook.

The second purpose of the notebook, though, and a very important one, is to ensure that something of my writing survives in case none of it ever gets published. And not just my words, but my actual handwriting. If all the computers I ever use eventually break down, which they inevitably will, I will have to be very careful to ensure that everything I write on a computer is printed down and saved in multiple places. Having a notebook with my handwritten text in it is nicer than having any printout from a computer.

I've been more careful lately to select notebooks with a hard cover on them. For years I wrote on reporter's notebooks, those tall spiral notebooks with either 80 or 160 pages in them. But they get damaged over time. Since I started writing the novel last August, I've been buying hardback notebooks of different shapes and sizes and doing my best to keep up the habit of writing.

The novel is finished now. It's a short novel at 55,000 words, but it was written in small snatches of spare time in the mornings and at lunchtime and in the evenings. At night, when the kids were in bed, I would sit here on the computer and type all that day's writing into a document on the computer. I could do that relatively quickly, because I'm a fast typist. It was a win-win situation. I got to preserve the original handwritten novel in different notebooks, but I also had a manuscript on computer, which could be easily edited and styled for presentation to publishers. And the process of typing from my handwritten words enabled me to edit and proofread, another important step in helping to perfect the work.

I finished writing the new novel in the first week of January, but I have kept up the habit of writing ever since. I try to write every day. Sometimes it consists of nothing more than ramblings about the day - like a journal. But sometimes it's deep and meaningful. The important thing is that I'm doing what I was born to do, even if the only one who sees most of it is myself. It's a great habit to be in. I can truly say that I am a writer, even if I'm not yet making a living from it.

Today, I bought myself a nice B6-size softcover notebook with cream pages. It's like a moleskine notebook, but not as expensive. I wanted something nice to write on. I'm hoping it will encourage my next book to flow from the pen........

Tara calling - Anthony Murphy speech video

Video: Land of the Ever-Living Ones author Anthony Murphy interviewed on LMFM's Late Lunch by Gerry Kelly

Tóchar - walking Ireland's ancient pilgrim paths

A short video featuring some extracts from a wonderful new book called 'Tóchar - walking Ireland's ancient pilgrim paths' by Darach MacDonald. Read by Newgrange author Anthony Murphy.

Anthony Murphy interviewed on Ancient Origins

I have the distinction and pleasure of being the latest guest author to be interviewed for the Ancient Origins website. The interview was conducted by April Holloway and was done via Skype. Have a look at the video above for some insights into Newgrange, including the extraordinary tale recorded there in the mid 20th century relating to an event that was first witnessed at this monument in deep prehistory.

My first work of fiction - 'Land of the Ever Living Ones' - coming soon

ANNOUNCEMENT

I am taking a giant leap into the realm of fiction!

My first work of fiction, a novella called 'Land of the Ever Living Ones', is nearing completion. The text is finished, and is currently being edited. I am planning to publish the book at Samhain, and if all goes to plan there will be both a printed version and an eBook version.

Land of the Ever Living Ones is an extraordinary dialogue between an old man and a young boy that reaches into cosmic and spiritual realms. In one fireside conversation, they sweep the universe with discussion about many different things, including natural phenomena, the mysteries of life and the question of what happens to us when we die.

The old man (seandraoí) has gained much knowledge and wisdom during his life, and readily imparts it to the eager young boy, who is full of questions.

Tír na mBeo (Land of the Ever Living Ones) was an ancient Irish name for the otherworld, the place to which the soul was believed to have gone after death. In this wide-ranging conversation, the man takes the boy on a journey into his own ancestral past, and through lesson, metaphor, story and dream, creates for him a stunning insight into his spiritual existence and his quest for eternity.

The journey is a magical and powerful one, evoking both ecstasy and melancholy, for lost ancestors, for the frailties of mankind, and for the sometimes harsh lessons of worldly life. However, it is an optimistic tale, one that stirs up great hope for the eventual destiny of the boy, and for all his kin.

Its central message is one of hope – that there is some reward beyond this life, and that all our struggles on this earth are not in vain.

Podcast: Interview with Jack Roberts, author of 'The Sun Circles of Ireland' and Cairn T alignment co-discoverer

Author and jewellery maker Jack Roberts, who is well known as being the co-discoverer of the equinox alignment of Cairn T, Loughcrew, with Martin Brennan, has just published a new book about stone circles. It's called 'The Sun Circles of Ancient Ireland' and is available in all good bookshops now. In this interview with Anthony Murphy of Mythical Ireland, Jack speaks about how he came to be interested in stone monuments and stone circles in particular. He also speaks candidly about his friendship with Martin Brennan, who he describes as his "guru" and "teacher", and about the controversy between Brennan and archaeologists that led to Brennan fleeing Ireland and not returning for a quarter of a century.

Roberts was also a good friend of John Michell. He lives in Sligo, but has spent 30 years on and off studying the stone circles of the south of Ireland. His new book represents the fruits of that labour.

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.

Author Martin Brennan speaking in Ireland at the Boyne Valley Revision conference

In 2009, after having thought about it for a long time, I decided to try to get Martin Brennan back to Ireland. The author of 'The Boyne Valley Vision' and 'The Stones of Time', who had made major discoveries about Neolithic astronomy, had left Ireland under a cloud in the mid 1980s and had never returned. With tremendous effort, and with considerable help from some of his friends, the whole thing came together as the 'Boyne Valley Revision' conference, at which he was due to be the star attraction. The event was held at the Newgrange Lodge on the day before winter solstice. Martin was very grateful at being brought back to Ireland, and indeed he met many old friends, and made lots of new ones too. It's the only time he's been back in a quarter of a century.

I've decided to put his whole talk online. I think it will serve as a valuable historical record, and it also gives some insights into some of the work he is doing in Mexico, where he has been living for a number of years now. His visit brought a lot of healing, and some of the acrimony between the Brennan 'camp' and the archaeologists was consigned to history.

Brennan was one of a number of people who inspired me when I began a wonderful adventure in the Boyne Valley with Richard Moore in 1999, which culminated eight years later with the publication of 'Island of the Setting Sun'. It was a great pleasure not only to meet him, but to spend time with him, and to become his friend. We don't, of course, agree on everything that each of us has written, but we have a common bond through our researches and writings that made us instant friends.

I will never forget the history few days when he came back to the Boyne Valley. Also speaking that day were Jack Roberts, Toby Hall, Sig Lonegren and Chris Bruno, all good friends of Martin's. Indeed Jack Roberts was with Brennan when they discovered the Dowth South solstice alignment and the penetration of dawn's glorious light into the chamber of Cairn T at Loughcrew on the equinox.

I hope that you enjoy Martin's talk. He is a wonderful speaker. As an artist, he does all of his own drawings and illustrations, which are superb. He manages to make very interesting links between ancient Mexican culture and the Boyne monuments which is fascinating.

Newstalk interview about new Newgrange book

Above is an audio file of my interview with Sean Moncrieff on Newstalk radio last Friday, December 2st - the winter solstice. The interview lasts almost ten minutes.

Following my Newgrange ancestors at Rathcor beach

This is a short video I made back in August while visiting Rathcor beach on the Cooley peninsula, said by geologists to have been the place where the builders of Newgrange sourced the granite cobble stones which are interspersed with white quartz on the front of the monument.

Over 5,000 years ago, our ancestors came to this spot to carefully select water-rolled granite cobbles which can still be found scattered about this remarkable rock beach in large numbers. Archaeologists believe they transported stones to Newgrange by boat, down the Irish Sea and up the Boyne River.

Rathcor is a most incredible beach. it is little visited by humans - precisely because all the stones there make it difficult to walk about, and dangerous for children. There is a sense of something untouched down there - something that has remained the same for five millennia.

Ironically, the granite at Cooley is not native. It originates further north, in the Mourne Mountains. How it got to the southern shore of the Cooley Peninsula is another question.

A journey to Rathcor, to see one of the sites from which the Newgrange builders got their stone, will send shivers up the spine and give you goosebumps. You can almost imagine meeting one of your ancestors there, picking up stones . . .

Newgrange - A Dream of Angus Og by George William Russell

This is a video I've made featuring words from George Russell's 'A Dream of Angus Oge' (1897) set to the backdrop of my photos of Newgrange and mystical music by Matthew Florianz.

Video: Newgrange book excerpt read by author Anthony Murphy

A much longer, 55-minute version of this video is available at this page on Mythical Ireland.

Newgrange: Monument to Immortality - publication date October 25th

Many people who visit the ancient and magnificent Newgrange monument in the Boyne Valley are driven by some deep longing to connect with their most distant roots. The giant 5,000-year-old megalithic construction evokes awe and wonderment, and often a sense of melancholy for the community of people who created it from stone and earth in the remote past, a people now lost to time.

The cover of the new book

For the past three centuries, archaeologists, antiquarians, and researchers have been probing Newgrange in the hope of revealing something about its purpose, and something about the mysterious people of the New Stone Age who created giant structures using primitive technology. In this fascinating book, Anthony Murphy shows that Newgrange is not only a uniquely special place, but that its construction was carried out not by a grizzly mob of grunting barbarians, but rather by an advanced agrarian community who had developed keen skills in the sciences of astronomy, engineering and architecture.

Newgrange: Monument to Immortality goes deep into the mind and soul of our neolithic ancestors to better understand what led them to build this remarkable monument. In a deeply moving, poetic and philosophical exploration, Murphy looks beyond the archaeology and the astronomy to reveal a much more profound and sacred vision of a sophisticated people who were driven to create this marvellous testament to their time.

The book has gone to the printer and, all going well, should be available to purchase in late October. To pre-order your copy, visit The Liffey Press website.

New novel featuring Newgrange just published

A new novel about Newgrange called 'Priestess of the Fire Temple - A Druid's Tale' has been published. The author is Ellen Evert Hopman, a well known druid leader and long-time contributor to the Irish-Stones mailing list. Here are some blurbs about this new novel:

Through intriguing characters we encounter sagas of war, love, life, and death, and are expertly introduced to herb lore along with other insights into Druidic knowledge that will whet the appetite for more. Riveting.

—Carmel Diviney, Bandruí agus Filidh, heritage activist with SaveTara.com and Tara Skryne Preservation Group in Dublin, Ireland

This tale of the spiritual awakening of a young woman, breaking free of the expectations that her ancient society imposes, is a master class in storytelling. 

 

—Raymond MacSuibhne, Pagan Federation Ireland National Coordinator and lifelong resident of County Cill Dara (Cell Daro), Ireland 

 

Herbal lore, ancient Celtic ways, Druidic secrets, magical workings, and much more are woven into a tale that will touch your heart and grace your life. 

 

—Susun S. Weed, wise woman, herbalist, and author of Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year 

 

A captivating and fast-paced story that sweeps the reader up in the mystery and turmoil of fifth-century Ireland … The best in the series so far. Definitely a must-read! 

 

—Morgan Daimler, author of By Land, Sea, and Sky: A Selection of Re-Paganized Prayers and Charms from the Carmina Gadelica 

 

Romance, royalty, cattle raids, herbalism, some wonderful poetry … I felt as if I were living at that time. Thumping good plot, as well as a “teaching” book. Couldn’t put it down! 

 

—Jane T. Sibley, Ph.D., author of The Hammer of the Smith and The Divine Thunderbolt: Missile of the Gods 

 

A treasure-trove of fascinating herbal lore and prayers of old, sure to delight anyone interested in the old Celtic ways. 

 

—Andrew Theitic, editor, The Witches’ Almanac, Ltd. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ellen Evert Hopman was vice president of the Henge of Keltria, an international Druid fellowship, for nine years. She is the founder of the Whiteoak Internet mailing list (an online Druid ethics study group) and is a co-founder and former co-chief of the Order of the Whiteoak (Ord Na Darach Gile). She lives and writes in an oak forest in Massachusetts. www.elleneverthopman.com