Lughnasagh sunset still shines into the passage of Cairn S, Loughcrew, more than five millennia after it was built

37 years ago, in 1980, Martin Brennan, Jack Roberts and their team of researchers made several significant discoveries relating to the astronomical alignment of several ancient chambered cairns (passage-tombs) in the Boyne Valley region. One such discovery, made in early August of that year, was the apparent alignment of the passage of Cairn S at Carnbane East, Loughcrew. Sitting in the chamber of the (now roofless) cairn, Brennan and his team saw that the Lughnasadh cross-quarter sunset was visible through the passage.

Lughnasadh sunset shines down the passage of the ancient Cairn S at Loughcrew.

Tonight, for the first time in my 18 years of research and photography, I witnessed what Brennan’s people excitedly discovered back then, and it was spectacular, as you can see. There is a story behind this photograph. With my son Luke accompanying, I drove an hour from Drogheda to Loughcrew this evening with the express purpose of witnessing and photographing this alignment. However, when we got there, a massive cumulonimbus cloud was looming over the whole western horizon. After sitting in the car for a few minutes, we figured that it was moving, albeit slowly, towards us. The sun was hidden. It was clear that this cloud was giving out a lot of rain. So we decided to sit it out. We arrived at 8pm. We knew the sunset would occur at about 9.10pm or so.

We sat and waited. Another man who had arrived with camera gear got out of his car and they went up the hill. “A big mistake,” I thought to myself. I could see the rain wasn’t far away and that it was extremely heavy. Sure enough, by about 8.25pm or so it was raining very heavily. The problem was that the cloud was moving extremely slowly. With no let-up in sight, we considered leaving. But having spotted a small patch of blue behind the grey sheets of rain, I decided we’d wait. In the meantime, the gentleman who had gone up earlier returned, quite soaked. After a few minutes, he left in his car.

“If needs be, we can leg it up the hill as soon as there’s any let-up in the rain,” I said to Luke. We planned our departure. When the rain finally started to ease, we made a dash for it. It was 8.45pm. Surely this was an exercise in futility?

As we ran up the hill (and it was a struggle for me, I can tell you, with the heavy camera equipment on my back), I turned and the sun was appearing beneath the huge black shower cloud. “We might be lucky yet,” I said as we scrambled up that hill. The thing about Sliabh na Calliagh is that, when you want to get up it fast, it seems to take every bit of your energy and determination. By the time we hit the last ascent, the steepest part, I was breathless to the extent of being in a state of near-collapse. Luke took the camera bag for the last stretch. What a fantastic companion to have on this trip – a sprightly, nimble and energetic 15-year-old.

After getting in through the gate, we reached Cairn S. I dumped the tripod on the ground, and ordered Luke to put the camera bag down. It was still raining, but the sun was out. I needed to act quickly. We might only have a minute or two to get a photograph. “Which camera?” I thought to myself as I worked out which would work better with remote flash. I decided on the D3X and quickly got set up with the 14mm f2.8 prime lens. It turned out to be a good decision. The photo you see above was taken with this setup. As you can see, the enormous cumulonimbus cloud occupied a huge portion of the sky – but crucially, the sun was out, and just at the right moment! What a capture. What a journey. What a brilliant climax after such an uncertain wait.

A wider view of the Cairn S Lughnasadh alignment from outside the chamber.

I actually got plenty of time to take photos then – with both cameras, and a variety of lenses. But within a short time the sun went in behind some cloud and the magical moment had passed. Nonetheless, we had captured it, in all its fabulous glory. We were wet. We were cold. We were out of breath. But boy were we happy.

After that, we relaxed a bit. The almost-full moon was out. We got lots of other photos – of Cairn S, of Cairn T, of the Hag’s Chair, of Cairn U, and Cairn V. But for now, the magical, mystical shot of the sunset from the chamber of Cairn S is putting a big smile on my face. I feel like I’ve caught up with not just 37 years of history tonight, but over 5,000 years of it.

Because of its short passage and wide chamber, it is obvious that Cairn S will align with the sun for some time. I will have to make a return visit in a couple of weeks to see if it is still aligned. 

Eschewing the little people, one archaeologist dismissed folklore about Newgrange, folklore that later proved true

The earliest antiquarians who visited, documented, sketched and spoke about Newgrange sometimes get a hard time from the modern academic establishment. The writings of Lhwyd and Molyneux and Pownall and Vallancey are all criticised for one reason or another (poor Charles Vallancey is largely ridiculed, perhaps because he referred to Newgrange as a Mithraic temple). All of the early antiquarian accounts of the monument are valuable for one reason or another. Some of them have captured aspects of the monument that have disappeared since they wrote. Without the tools and techniques of modern archaeology, all of them were poking around in the dark, so to speak. They couldn't have known the true age of Newgrange,  nor could they have appreciated the skills of the artists and builders who created it, those whom they all too often referred to as barbarous.

Newgrange in its pre-excavation days.

The New Grange book.

However, Dr. Glyn Daniel, lecturer in archaeology at Cambridge University and editor of the academic journal Antiquity, perhaps should have known better. In 1964, Daniel's book 'New Grange and the Bend of the Boyne' was published by Thames & Hudson. It had been a collaborative effort with University College Cork professor of archaeology, Sean P. Ó Ríordáin. Sadly, Ó Ríordáin had passed away in 1957 in his early fifties, when the pair were only half way through completion of the book. Daniel was the General Editor of the 'Ancient Peoples and Places' series of books, under which the New Grange title was published. It was to become the largest single study of the Newgrange monument since George Coffey's 1912 book, and would be the last before Professor Michael J. O'Kelly's excavations at Newgrange revealed so many of its secrets.

One of the shortcomings of the Daniel/Ó Ríordáin book is that it fails to deal in any substantial terms with the mythical history of the Newgrange monument or indeed its counterparts in the Bend of the Boyne. Except for one passage in which he relates that New Grange might be an English corruption of An Uamh Greine (the cave of Grainne), Daniel does not discuss the ancient names of Newgrange, or its import in the early texts, as O'Kelly later did in his own work on Newgrange. Failing to acknowledge the earlier Irish names of Newgrange, and its mythology and associated stories, Daniel falls into a trap – he assumes the folklore about the site to be utter fantasy, and dismisses it as such:

"It is natural that impressive monuments like New Grange and Stonehenge should be visited a great deal by the general public and should themselves have attracted a folklore based on imagination, half-forgotten history, unappreciated archaeology and the sort of nonsense that luxuriates in the lunatic fringes of serious archaeology."(1)

And in that foregoing paragraph, Daniel was just setting himself up for a fall.

"The visitor to New Grange and Dowth will not be surprised to be told that these monuments were built by and were the homes of 'the little people' or to be asked their connection with the Druids."

One should always be careful about dismissing the fairy folk – even if one is a leading archaeologist and "expert" of the times!

But the following is perhaps indicative of the perhaps excessively arrogant attitude of Daniel in dealing with a monument such as Newgrange and in his rush to dismiss the folklore, he dismissed also notions about the site that would later transpire to be based in truth:

The entrance kerb stone at Newgrange (K1).

"A coloured calendar current in Ireland in 1960 had in it a good photograph of the decorated stone at the entrance to New Grange; this was accompanied by an account which needs quoting almost in toto as an example of the jumble of nonsense and wishful thinking indulged in by those who prefer the pleasures of the irrational and the joys of unreason to the hard thinking that archaeology demands.'The entrance in the east was originally triangular,' says this description, 'but is now changed for easy entrance, formerly it was necessary to crawl in and progress was retarded by interference, stones compelling the neophyte to stoop and stumble. The rays of the rising sun at certain times of the year penetrate the opening and rest on a remarkable triple spiral carving in the central chamber. Like the Great Pyramid of Gizeh in Egypt the New Grange Temple was originally covered with a layer of white quartz and was a brilliant object of Light for a considerable distance. Nuda, first king of Tuatha de Danann in Ireland, and his Master Magician, are said to have officiated here in the very, very old days. Artemidoros the Ephesian stated: "To Sacred Ierne of the Hibernians men go to learn more of the Mysteries of Samothrace."'

Two very important statements in this 1960 calendar demonstrate that there were enduring traditions about Newgrange that were fascinating and even compelling (and certainly worthy of at least some investigation) – one that the sun shone into the chamber during the year and the other that it was once covered with white quartz. Understandably, Daniel could not have known about the existence of quartz, given that the O'Kelly excavations at Newgrange had just begun when the Daniel/Ó Ríordáin book was published, but there was at least one possible reference to this feature in mythology – the "white-topped brugh" was said to have been "brilliant to approach".(2) If he had been a bit more familiar with some of the mythology of Newgrange, he might not have been so quick to shrug it off.

But Daniel certainly should not have been so dismissive in relation to the solar alignment – especially as it had been previously suggested by the likes of Solar Physics Observatory director Sir Norman Lockyer in 1909, and W.Y. Evans-Wentz in The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries in 1911.(3)

Within three years or so of the publication of the Daniel/Ó Ríordáin book, Professor Michael O'Kelly would stand in the chamber of Newgrange and become the first person in the modern era (and perhaps since the Bronze Age) to witness the winter solstice sunlight streaming into its inner chamber, illuminating (by reflected light) the triskele or triple spiral in the chamber. During his excavations at the famous monument, O'Kelly would uncover a significant layer of quartz beneath the cairn spill material – quartz that he would later demonstrate through repeated experiment that actually fronted the monument. In other words, at the very least Newgrange had a white quartz facade, and it is not such a huge leap of imagination to envision the possibility that the cairn was once covered with this bright stone.

The Newgrange triple spiral (triskele) in the chamber

One wonders what Daniel made of O'Kelly's revelations, and how it might have altered his thinking in relation to folklore. Folk memory is a very powerful thing. This might have been demonstrated in the case of the story in the locality of Newgrange suggesting that the Morning Star (Venus) shone into the chamber of the monument once every eight years, as recorded by Joseph Campbell in his 1959 book 'The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology"(4) Then there was the folklore collected in 1938 that suggested the Tuatha Dé Danann had built Newgrange using stones brought from the Mourne Mountains, another apparently wild and imaginative claim that had some basis in reality.

Even in the claim that "Nuda" officiated at Newgrange, the calendar was not too far off the mark. In the early texts, Newgrange is associated in particular with Elcmar, Dagda and Oengus. Dagda was chief of the gods, a kind of Tuatha Dé king, so to speak, and Elcmar was described as a "magician" and "original master of Brug na Bóinne".(5)

Unfortunately, I can only challenge Mr. Daniel posthumously, and as he is not here to defend himself, I must not take undue licence in criticising him for these shortcomings. I am glad that this diminution of folklore is not ubiquitous among modern archaeologists. As mentioned above, Michael O'Kelly outlined the mythical importance of Newgrange, and seemed to hold great reverence for the possibility that it was "a house of the dead and as an abode of spirits" which, he said, was a concept not contradicted by the findings of the excavation. O'Kelly felt that a connection between the archaeological evidence and the early literature was to be found in the older and "more genuine tradition".(6)

Daniel allowed only one statement in the 1960 calendar to stand: "It is at least true in this strange wild-cat account we have just quoted, that New Grange might well be described as belonging to 'the very, very old days'."

"It is our object in this book," he continued, "not only to describe the great tombs in the Bend of the Boyne but to set them in what appears to us their true prehistoric context, as far as the limitations of archaeology allow, eschewing the little people and Artemidoros".

One eschews the daoine sídhe at one's peril! Never dismiss the folklore...

References:
(1) Ó Ríordáin, Sean P., and Daniel, Glyn (1964), New Grange and the Bend of the Boyne, Thames and Hudson, p.19.
(2) Murphy, Anthony (2012), Newgrange – Monument to Immortality, Liffey Press, p.114.
(3) Ibid, p.170.
(4) Campbell (1991) [1959], pp.430-1.
(5) MacKillop, James (1998), Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology, Oxford University Press, p.177.
(6) O'Kelly, Michael J. (1998) [1982], Newgrange: Archaeology, Art & Legend, Thames and Hudson, p.47.

An early morning trip to Loughcrew to observe whether the passage of Cairn U is aligned to Imbolc sunrise

In his 1983 book, The Stars and the Stones: Ancient Art and Astronomy in Ireland, Martin Brennan suggested that the passage of Cairn U, one of the smaller cairns on Slieve na Calliagh (known today as Carnbane East) at Loughcrew, was aligned on the November/February cross-quarter sunrises. One team of observers was situated in Cairn U on November 3rd 1980, which was five days before the correct date for Samhain cross-quarter on November 8th. Brennan implies, although falls short of explicitly stating, that Cairn U is aligned to the cross-quarter sunrises. Regrettably, no further observations were possible, due to weather (not altogether unsurprising due to the Irish climate!) until November 12th.(1)

The passage of Cairn U in the pre-dawn sky of February 3rd.

I was unaware of any photographic proof extent showing the sun aligning with the passage of Cairn U. Probably the best-known photographer of ancient megalithic sites and their alignments is Ken Williams of Shadows & Stone. In personal communications, Ken indicated to me that although he had been at Cairn U around the time of the cross-quarter sunrises, and although he had some photos, he hadn't been there on the exact day.

I set out from Drogheda at 6.25am with the intention of getting to Loughcrew (which can take an hour or so by road) and climbing up the hill to be ready for sunrise, which occurs at around 8.08am. With all the camera gear, the walk up the hill is quite laborious!

Cairn U looking down the passage from the end recess towards the southeastern sky.

With a red sky forming because of some cloud towards the southeast, it was clear that the sun would come up in the approximate direction to which the passage of Cairn U was pointing, with me positioned in the rear recess (photo above).

The sun was obscured by cloud for the first few minutes after the actual moment of sunrise. So I was unable to make direct observation at the moment the sun was rising above the horizon.  However, what was immediately clear was that the sun's position was still somewhat to the south of where it needed to be for a direct alignment. I observed the sun's azimuthal position from the light that it was projecting on to the clouds. Crouched in the rear recess, I couldn't see the sun or its light. However, on leaning slightly into the left-hand recess, I could see the sun coming out from behind the clouds in alignment with the passage. This is shown in the photo below.

The sun appears from behind cloud in alignment with the passage of Cairn U (sort-of!)

It was a great thrill to see the sun emerging though. I suspect it will be maybe a week or so before the sun is rising directly in alignment to the rear of the end recess - but unfortunately this is just a rough guess and there is no empirical method to my guesstimate! Perhaps a return visit next week might be in order.

A closer view of the sun's appearance from the interior of Cairn U.

The alignment today was such that I had to lean towards the left-hand recess of Cairn U in order to see the sun through the passageway. Perhaps the cairn focuses on a range of sunrises, maybe lasting a couple of weeks. This is something that requires further observation.

Megalithic art on the side stone of the left-hand recess of Cairn U.

One very, very interesting thing which I did not realise until this morning is the fact that today's sunrise, as viewed from Cairn U, was coming up over the Hill of Tara in the far distance. I imagine that is not a coincidence. Neighbouring Cairn T faces the Hill of Slane (looking across Hill of Lloyd) for equinox sunrise. Some of the cairns on Carnbane West point to cairns on Carnbane East. I put the telephoto lens on the camera to zoom in for the shot of Tara from Cairn U below:

About 15 minutes after sunrise. The Hill of Tara is located at the clump of trees towards the left.

It's such a great pleasure to be able to observe these astronomical occurrences at prehistoric buildings. There are numinous qualities to such moments because they transcend temporal boundaries and take us back, in a way that is both spiritually and empirically connective, to a remote era when our early ancestors observed heavenly phenomena. We can only conjecture at a possible greater purpose behind such alignments, and inevitably such conjecture takes us into realms that are both scientific and spiritual. On the one hand, early people were marking out the distinct patterns of the sky, making the ancient passage-tombs of Ireland primordial sundials (and doubtlessly moondials too). But their construction was such that they are a statement, tacit or explicit, of permanence, of longevity, in a world where the cycles of nature spun all too fast, especially where humans themselves are concerned. In the Neolithic, a great many people would not live to see even one completion of what was known in later Irish as the Naoidheachda, meaning "the nineteenth" - the 19-year cycle of the moon which today is known as the Metonic Cycle. The best a neolithic cairn builder could hope for was to see two complete Metonic Cycles. There were no elders in the New Stone Age, certainly not in the sense that we have elders today. Spiritual elders, perhaps, but not aged octogenarians or centenarians. At 40, you were a wise elder of the Neolithic community. At 50, you might have been seen as a freak of nature.

Furthermore, the ancient passage-cairns weave a connective web suggestive of awareness or consciousness of a greater cosmos, in which the sun and astral bodies are not so much seen as things that are "out there", totally beyond reach or influence, but rather things with which humans and the animate world have a distinct interaction. The light and heat of the sun can be seen to directly influence growth and seasonal patterns in nature, in addition to the many migratory patterns which would have been observable in the vicinity of the Boyne and Slieve na Calliagh tombs in the Neolithic. The moon's distinct and powerful effect on the tides is something that Alexander Thom remarked might have been known since time immemorial. 

The labour involved in creating cairns on hilltops must not be underestimated. Even a fit young person finds the climb to the summit of Slieve na Calliagh an exertive and physically demanding activity. Imagine repeating this exertion, with the additional burden of carrying a boulder, or several boulders. When one factors weather and the lack of any significant capable engineering or construction technology into the equation, the building of the cairns on the hills of Loughcrew seems a gargantuan task. These structures certainly deserve to be described as immense and monumental. As well as being prodigious feats of construction, they are monumental memorials to the humans who laboured hard to complete them. Their fastidious observations of discernible natural phenomena were ingeniously combined with an imaginative vista which opened towards realms that were supernatural, transcendental and otherworldy while retaining a physical connection to the telluric, sublunary sphere. At Loughcrew, this world and the next are seen to coalesce. Up there, on the hills of the hag, one gets a sense of detachment from the ordinary mortal dimension. Reaching out towards the sky above and the horizon beyond, the young humans who had just discovered agriculture and who were setting in place the foundations of civilisation, stepped out through the inter-dimensional threshold of the cairns into whatever realms of the spirit or imagination lay beyond.

There is yet at least one place on the earth where the ancient spirit dwells. When the fast-revolving clock of astronomical circuits ticks down on each of us at our own appointed time, we might aspire to those realms that were so anciently envisioned. Can we yet countenance the possibility that we will perhaps some day meet those who left their bones behind in the cairns of Loughcrew, out there, beyond that threshold?

References:
(1) Brennan (1983).

The 12 days of Solstice - Day 12 - sunlight in the passage of Newgrange on the dawn of Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice has officially arrived. Today the sun reaches its minimum declination - its furthest southerly position in the sky. This is the turning point of the year. As the sun rises above Red Mountain in the Boyne Valley this morning (weather permitting), its light will enter through an opening above the passage entrance known as the 'roof box' and will illuminate the central chamber, which lies about 20 metres inside the cairn, for around 17 minutes.  The lucky Winter Solstice Lottery winners will be inside, while hundreds will gather outside. This year, there will be 20 Irish wolfhound dogs at Newgrange too. It should be a great morning.

The photo shows a view taken on Winter Solstice 2010 just as I was emerging from the chamber where I had witnessed the solstice illumination for the first time. As you can see, there are two beams of light. The main area of light, on the floor and the lower part of the passage orthostats, enters through the main doorway. This might have been closed by a large slab during winter solstice ceremonies in ancient times. The upper beam is a much shallower beam, and is visible higher up on the orthostats in the left of the image. This is the light that comes in through the roof box, and it is only this beam that reaches the floor of the chamber within.

As we reflect upon the coming of the glorious light of dawn into the dark void, and the turning of the year, we hope that events in the wider world which have led humanity into darkness in recent times will turn also, and that the hearts of those who have resorted to anger, hatred or fear are softened, so that we can better learn to get along with each other. For that is one of the central themes of the ancient myths involving the Tuatha Dé Danann, the gods who were said to have owned and built Newgrange. When the Milesians came from Spain, to take Ireland by force, there was initially some fighting and, after losses on both sides, the Dé Dananns and the Milesians reached an accord. The Dé Dananns would occupy the sídhe, these great palaces of stone and earth that allowed access to and from the otherworlds, while the Milesians would occupy the surface of the land. And so it is that we must learn to get along with our fellow humans. We must learn to get along together. What is the alternative, except suffering and misery?

Today, as the sun shines into the heart-shaped mound of Newgrange, and warms its interior with a golden light, we ask that a light shines into the hearts of all our fellow human beings, that we might learn to reach an accord that looks to the ending of hate and discrimination, and allows for a peaceful settlement of all conflict. That is the most urgent message from Newgrange for today's world.

The 12 days of Solstice - Day 11 - Winter Solstice sunrise viewed from the doorway of Newgrange

It's day 11 of my new series of photographs entitled 'The 12 days of Solstice'. This is the second-last image in the series. It shows the sun not long after it has risen on the shortest days of the year at Winter Solstice. The picture was taken just inside the entrance of the passage of Newgrange. Above my head in this image is the specially constructed aperture known as the 'roof box'. This is the portal which allows sunlight to penetrate the entire length of the passage and into the chamber. The light that enters through the actual doorway does not reach the chamber floor. The two beams of light are kept separate by the stone seen in the top of this image.

Immediately in front of the entrance is the large kerb stone, K1, which on its front side (the side facing the sun) has the famous tri-spiral design among other lavish engravings. At the time this photo was taken, the sun's light had already left the chamber again. It shines in there for 17 brief minutes. There is something very special about the quality of the light immediately at sunrise. As soon as the sun rises above the ridge known as Red Mountain (Roughgrange), its golden light reaches into the corridor of Newgrange and shines a narrow beam of light onto the darkened floor of its central chamber. It is at this moment that the year is seen to have reached its turning point. The old year dies and the new year is born. Dagda, the father god, yields ownership of Síd in Broga (Newgrange) to his son, Oengus Óg, the youthful sun.

From this moment, following a period of about a week when the sun's rising position has stood still on the horizon, it begins its slow movement back towards the east, and after a few weeks the light will get stronger and the days longer.

Time lapse video - winter evening setting sun illuminates southern chamber at Dowth megalithic monument

It was shaping up to be a lovely time lapse video. I wanted to record the setting sun shining into the southern chamber of Dowth. It's six days until Winter Solstice, and the sky was nice and clear, so I headed out to Dowth with the cameras hoping to catch the illumination of the chamber. As you can see, all was going well, but an encroaching Atlantic front - bringing rain - started to shroud the sun just at the crucial time, and cut off the light, which had begun to reach the chamber floor.

I guess I will just have to try again, if and when the opportunity arises.

Make sure to watch the video full screen and in 1080 high definition. (To do that, press play on the video, and when it starts playing click on the YouTube logo on bottom right. That will open the video in a new window. Then click the full screen and HD settings either side of the YouTube logo).

In the meantime, if you want to see some fantastic photos of a previous winter solstice illumination of Dowth by Anne Marie Moroney, click on this link.

Time lapse footage shows dramatic eclipsing of Dowth's solar eclipse symbols on Stone of the Seven Suns

The above video is a time lapse sequence showing the Stone of the Seven Suns (kerb stone 51) as it is lit up dramatically after sunrise in early December, with just two weeks to go to the Winter Solstice. The video features almost half an hour of footage compressed into one minute and 30 seconds. The symbols on the stone are thought to represent the sun, or perhaps even the sun during a solar eclipse, with ties in with the mythology about Dowth which suggests that its construction was abandoned when a sudden darkness fell over the land.

The time lapse footage reveals something fascinating. At first, the solar symbols are lit up quite dramatically, so that they are shown in excellent relief. Then, as the sun rises moves towards the south, a shadow from another kerb stone falls over the sun symbols - eclipsing the symbols one by one. If you can, make sure to watch the YouTube video at 1080 HD and full screen.

Kerb 49 (arrowed) is the one that casts
the shadow on kerb 51. Also shown here
is kerb 50, with its vertical line.

Unfortunately there was cloud blocking the sun early on, so the first of the seven sun symbols, which is on the far left of the stone, is already in shadow when the sun comes out. However, that does not spoil the show. Sit back and watch this marvel of megalithic magic! One can only speculate as to whether this "light and shadow" show was intentional on the part of the builders. The shadow from kerb stone 49, which is two stones to the left of the Seven Suns stone, causes the eclipsing of the symbols on kerb 51. However, it can be seen that kerb 49 leans forward somewhat (K49 is arrowed in the picture on right), and one has to be mindful about the possibility that this lean has happened in more recent times and was not, perhaps, part of the original design.

However, this interaction of light and symbols reminds me somewhat of the illumination of symbols that are not dissimilar to Dowth's seven suns on the back stone of Cairn T at Loughcrew. These symbols are lit up by sunrise on the spring and autumn equinoxes.

The interplay of light and shadow is also suggested at Newgrange, where shadows from the Great Circle stones appear to point towards, or "touch", kerb stones at the front of Newgrange at certain important times of the year, as described by Frank Prendergast.

Although I've been to Dowth several mornings lately to watch how beautifully the sun symbols are illuminated, I hadn't realised the extent of the phenomenon, or the slow progression of the shadow, until I saw the time lapse video. The video was made by taking a photography every two seconds. Because it compresses time, it shows the effect much more vividly.

The sun symbols lit up by the low winter sun. The shadow has not yet eclipsed these emblems.

The shadow crosses the stone diagonally, and interestingly the last sun to remain illuminated is the one which is currently at ground level. I presume the original Neolithic ground level is several inches below the current ground level and that the lower part of this symbol is hidden from view.

At around 9.15am, as shown in the above photo, the shadow from K49 is crossing the diagonal line on K50. Within about 15 minutes this shadow will have completely crossed K50 and will begin its slow progression across K51, eclipsing the eclipse emblems as it does.

The shadow from K49 is almost half-way across K51, the Seven Suns stone.

There is undoubtedly more to be learned about Dowth. It continues to provide surprises. Even though its mythology suggests a summer solstice influence, we can see the midwinter sunrise also has a dramatic "wakening" effect upon the few eastern kerb stones that are revealed. This is by far the best time of the year to view the Stone of the Seven Suns. At most other times, the megalithic art appears to be very flat and is sometimes difficult to see.

We shouldn't forget either that Dowth's southern passage and chamber are aligned so that the light of the setting sun on winter solstice shines inside, as shown in these beautiful photos by Anne Marie Moroney.

Winter sunlight does some beautiful things with the ancient megalithic art on the stones at Dowth

I've been able to spend a few mornings at Dowth recently. It's one of three of the great monuments of Brú na Bóinne (the others being Newgrange and Knowth), but is the least visited of the trio. Personally, I'm glad that Dowth retains this almost-forgotten status. It is not on the official tour. It is wild and overgrown, and many of its secrets are in the deep slumber of many centuries. I like it that way. It's a lovely place to spend time. Despite the fact that it is named after darkness (Irish Dubhadh), it presents a very interesting notion - the belief that we must experience the darkness of the longest night before the new year dawns.

Winter sunrise at Dowth, the third great passage-tomb of the Brú na Bóinne complex.

While it near neighbour Newgrange is famous for its winter solstice sunrise alignment, Dowth's alignment to the sunset on the shortest day is less well known. Discovered (rediscovered) in 1980 by Martin Brennan and Jack Roberts, it was studied in detail over the course of a number of winters by Anne Marie Moroney, who published a lovely little book about it called Dowth: Winter Sunsets.

While the focus at Dowth is undoubtedly centered around winter sunset, there is something really beautiful that happens just after the sunrise on these short days of midwinter. The very well-known kerb stone 51 at Dowth, more famously referred to as the Stone of the Seven Suns (named so by Martin Brennan), is gloriously lit up by the warm luster of the midwinter sun. For about an hour after sunrise, these ancient solar symbols are highlighted in a dramatic fashion by the acute angle of the low sun. As a photographer who has spent many years photographing this stone under various lighting conditions, I can safely say that I have never seen them so impressively and dramatically in relief. It's quite striking. Below are a couple of photos showing some of the megalithic carvings, which are thought to be up to 5,500 years old, lit up by the winter sun.

Some of the solar emblems on the Seven Suns Stone lit up by the low winter sun.

The megalithic art is highlighted in dramatic and pristine fashion by the acute angle of sunlight.

The Stone of the Seven Suns is on the eastern side of the great mound of Dowth. Curiously, over on the southwestern side, the entrance stone to the southern chamber is also lit up by the morning sun in winter time. This is due to the alignment of the stone, which is orientated roughly northwest-southeast. There are two large cup holes on the stone, referred to by some as 'Lucy's Eyes'. There is also some worn megalithic art, which appears to be part of a spiral. A good bit of the stone is still buried beneath the ground - only the top third or quarter is visible above the surface.

The spiral and cup marks on the entrance kerb. I added flash to this one because the sunlight was a bit watery.

For a place that is named after darkness, the sun plays a big role at Dowth. It penetrates the southern chamber at midwinter, as we know. Until recent centuries, it probably also shone into the northern chamber around the time of Samhain and Imbolc sunsets (November/February). And there may be undiscovered passageways within its huge bulk. But as I said before, some of its secrets are in slumber. For now at least. And that's just the way I like it.

See more photos of Dowth.

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.

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.)

Newgrange at midsummer - the solstice and the longest days of the year in video and photos

I had the pleasure of spending a couple of evenings out at Newgrange this week, following the very recent Summer Solstice.Tonight's visit was especially beautiful. I saw the sun going down and there was a beautiful sky at the time. This was followed by a lovely red sky and a vivid lingering twilight.

Taken tonight, a week after the Summer Solstice, with the sun's setting position not having moved much in a week, you can see how the sunset at this time of year is opposite the winter sunrise, towards which the passage opening points.

From here on in, the sun begins its slow retreat southwards, with the inevitable shortening of the days that comes with it.

Right now, the twilight lasts throughout the night. This will keep happening for another couple of weeks, but after that the evenings will start to draw in again.

This is something that must have had quite a dramatic impact on the minds and lives of the people of the Stone Age. The passage of the sun from its strongest to its weakest is surely something around which the monuments and some of their mythology was based. It's easy to see why this would be the case. The long days of light in the summer seem everlasting. This might have been what the legend of Dowth referred to.

A beautiful red sky ensued after sunset at Newgrange tonight.

Although I love this time of year, and the warmer and brighter days, they are always tinged with a sense of sadness too, because these days don't last. The endless twilight of midsummer is fleeting, and the year turns again quickly. The retreat of the sun back towards the south gave rise, I have no doubt, to numerous myths involving themes such as darkness and the vanquishing of one foe or hero by another. At Newgrange, this is best exemplified in the myth of Aonghus Óg, who takes Síd in Broga (the old name for Newgrange) from his father, Dagda, the chief of the gods. He does this by asking him for possession of the Brug for one day and one night. When the Dagda asks for the return of the Sídhe, Aonghus says "all of time is made up of night and day" and thus, through cunning, takes permanent possession of Newgrange from his father.

Perhaps Aonghus Óg, Aonghus the young, represents the coming of the new sun at winter solstice, and the growing of the year that results, and he takes possession of the mound from the older, dying sun of the previous year.

Video: An explanation of some of the astronomical and mythological symbolism of the summer solstice and the sun's unique position above Orion on this day

In this video, I explain some of the fascinating astronomical and mythical symbolism of today's Summer Solstice, and in particular I point out the very unique occurrence of the sun passing above Orion's hand - in the Milky Way - on this auspicious day.

Today is Summer Solstice, the maximum northerly declination of the sun, which occurs precisely at 10:34pm GMT (11.34pm local time) this evening. The sun's rising and setting positions in the northeast and northwest have reached a standstill and over the course of the next few days these positions will begin to retreat southwards. These are the longest days of the year.

If we could somehow blot out the sun, as happens during a total solar eclipse, we would see that the sun is presently located above the constellation Orion, in his outstretched arm. This is unique to our time. The sun's solstice and equinox positions are slowly drifting westwards through the zodiac due to a wobble of the earth's axis. The effect of this wobble is that the solstice/equinox points complete a circuit of the zodiac just once very 25,920 years.

In a few decades' time, the sun will have drifted out of Orion's hand on the summer solstice, moving gradually into Taurus (the bull constellation). It will not return to Orion's hand on Summer Solstice for almost 26,000 years. Eventually the autumn equinox sun will be in the hand of Orion, but not for another 6,500 years! And then in around 13,000 years, the winter solstice sun will be in the hand of Orion. I know it might be hard to believe, but by that time Orion will no longer be visible from Ireland. He will be too far south and only the stars of his upraised arm will be visible here.

Orion/Lugh/Cúchulainn/Fionn/Nuadu carries the sun across the sky.

There is some fascinating mythological symbolism involved in today's occurrence which I have explored before, especially in my book Island of the Setting Sun. There are several candidates for this constellation in Irish mythology. These include Lugh Lamhfada (Lugh of the Long Arm, or Long Throw), who may have been seen to control the movement of the sun, moon and planets along the ecliptic from his arm. Similarly, Lugh's son Cúchulainn, the chief character of the epic Táin Bó Cuailnge, is said to have fired a sliothar (ball used in an Irish game called hurling) through the mouth of a hound/cú (Leo), and was said to have fought best in ford water. Indeed the point where the sun sits on Summer Solstice is that point where the ecliptic intersects with the Milky Way galaxy, the river of the sky. This was Bealach Bó Finne (the Way of the White Cow), and its earthly equivalent was Abhainn Bó Finne (Boyne River). Fionn Mac Cumhaill was said to have thrown standing stones into the landscape from places like Hill of Tara and Slieve Gullion. I wonder if this myth/folk tale perhaps connects Orion with the solstices - it's possible that many standing stones have alignments towards the sun's solstices or the lunar standstills. If Fionn threw the stones, perhaps this is a reference to the alignment with such astronomical events which are seen to be controlled by this illustrious man in the sky. Fionn's name translates as "Bright Son of the Hazel" or "Starry Son of the Hazel".

"I am a light for every road and journey" - Lugh Lamhfada.

An equally illustrious character from the early Irish myths is Nuadu of the Silver Arm, King of the Tuatha Dé Danann, whose arm was chopped off in the first battle of Moytura. He had a new silver arm made for him by the Tuatha Dé Danann healer, Dian Cecht. Thus he was able to take part in the second battle of Moytura (Mag Tuired) in which the Dananns were victorious against the Fomorians. This myth inspired the famous scene in the Star Wars movies where Luke Skywalker (Orion is perhaps seen to walk through the sky) confronts the evil Darth Vader, who chops off his arm with a light sabre. Towards the end of the movie, we see that Luke is given a metal, robotic prosthesis, similar perhaps to Nuadu's new "silver" arm.

The full moon on summer solstice.

The symbolism of today's event is stark. A giant warrior/god/hunter/man carries the sun aloft across the sky, like an Olympic torch bearer, from dawn until dusk.

Tonight, as the sun sets, a full moon will rise in the southeast, in the other "crossing point" or "ford" of the sky where the ecliptic crosses the Milky Way. Full moons on the day of solstice are rare enough. The last one was in 1967. So today we are enjoying a special conjunction of astronomical events.

The moon will be accompanied in that region of the sky by the planet Mars, currently quite bright, and also the planet Saturn and the bright star of Scorpius, Antares.

See also an earlier post about Lugh carrying the sun on Summer Solstice.

Watching the northerly march of the sun as we head towards the longest days of the year

I realise that I haven't written a blog post in a while. It's not that I haven't been doing anything. Quite the opposite. One of the things that's been keeping me busy is photography. Among many other things, I've been tracking the northerly progress of the sunsets over the past month or so as we march inevitably towards summer solstice and the longest days of the year. It's just over three weeks away now, and as much as I love this time of year, personally watching the sunsets is always tinged with sadness for me. And in this blog post, I will attempt to explain why.

The sadness finds its source in a number of places. I think that its difficult to live at any latitude so removed from the equator that the difference in the length of day from midwinter to midsummer is enormous. It's not so difficult to live in Ireland in summer, when the days are long and there is a great spurt of life and growth evident all around. Winter is a very different story. The days are short, and are often shortened further by a darkness that is creeping and all-encompassing. Immersed in this darkness, all you can do is accept it, and perhaps embrace it, and wait for the days to lengthen.

A recent sunset over the Boyne from Millmount.

Summer then arrives rather abruptly. In late March, the clocks go forward by an hour. Where previously the sun was setting around 6pm, now it sets at 7, and it doesn't get dark until nearly 8. Because it's the time of equinox, the sun's rising and setting positions on the eastern and western horizons are moving at their greatest speed. The days are getting longer rapidly from Imbolc (the ancient Celtic spring festival of early February), through spring equinox, and on towards Bealtaine (early May). Before Daylight Saving Time kicks in, you are probably driving to and from work in the dark, and find that the only daylight activities you can partake in (apart from whatever work you do) are at weekends, when you try to "cram it all in".

From late March onward, you can start to enjoy the "stretch in the evenings", as it is commonly referred to here in Ireland. And very quickly, within a month, you've gone from driving home in the dark to enjoying brightness until well after 9pm.

Tonight, (May 29th, 2016) I watched and photographed the sun as it went down beneath the horizon from Millmount, a mound said to have been built by the Normans in the 12th century, but which local folklore says is an ancient burial mound. The sun finally disappeared beneath the horizon at 9.33pm. As I write, it's 10.29pm and it's still not dark.

Now don't get me wrong. I love this time of year. And I love the long evenings. I enjoy the extra light. It invigorates my spirit. There is something about the lingering of the light that I have always connected with hope, and vitality. I suppose there's probably nothing unusual about that.

However, part of the sadness that I feel, even at this time of year, stems from the realisation that inevitably the sun will reach a certain maximum setting azimuth and, after halting there for a few days, will begin to start heading south again. No sooner do the glorious days of summer arrive and suddenly the pendulum swings against us. From Millmount, the sun at midsummer appears to set over Hill of Rath, in the direction of another hill at Collon known as the Black Hill. I wonder if this name is one of many place names in Ireland that might possibly be explained through such astronomical alignments. Is it called the Black Hill because it marks the place from which the sun turns back, towards the shorter days and darker evenings?

Today was a particularly glorious day in the Boyne Valley. It was warm and sunny and the whole valley is alive with the business of summer. People were out in droves, walking, playing, relaxing. It was one of those days when you might say to yourself, "if it was like this all the time you'd never want to leave."

But some of us are so married to the place - despite the sometimes endless rain, and the short cold days of winter - that we never leave it anyway.

The swifts and swallows and house martins, having recently arrived back from their faraway wintering grounds in Africa, perhaps conversely remind us of our own rooting to place, our connection to home, something that, until the invention of powered flight, was largely intrinsic to our lives as humans. We might have ventured across the globe as a species, but locally, once we find home, we tend to stay there. And sometimes, bound to that spot on the earth by our sense of belonging, and perhaps reinforced by our sense of community, we might wish that, like the swallow, we could just alight into the great air and fly off somewhere else for the winter, leaving the harsh chill behind.

One of the other things that makes me sad, even on these lovely long evenings of summer, is the fact that the relentless movement of the sun, and the consequent brightening and darkening of the days, is an eternal reminder of the fleeting and changing nature of our own lives. There, reflected in the everyday movements of that golden ball upon which we depend for so much, we see in vivid reality the corruptible nature of our own carnal selves. Just as the day rises tentatively in the east, and the noon comes brightly to strengthen the day, the evening arrives all too swiftly and the day is spent. All this is extended and magnified in the great drama of the seasons, and all too quickly the autumn arrives, with its fallen leaves and drooping spirits ushering in the harsh winter.

The setting sun in early May viewed from Millmount.

So even as we watch the sun dropping down onto the far green-grey hills in the warm evening, we contemplate the relentless march of time, and of season, and how the winters and summers rise and fall with alarming haste. And we think back, perhaps, to the metaphorical dark and bright seasons in our own lives - times when we might have enjoyed a fulsome vitality, or times when maybe there was darkness or a lack of light. We might think of people - friends, relatives or acquaintances - upon whose lives the sun set all too soon.

All of which gives us good reason to enjoy, as much as possible, while we have the time, and while we might be able to, the glorious coming of the long evenings of summer.

And perhaps, as we watch that sinking red orb strike the horizon, we might remember also the ancient ancestors who possibly stood at the same spot and watched that same sun disappear into the earth.

Aonghus and Caer lover swans on the Boyne at sunset

Two swans on the river Boyne at sunset beneath the Boyne Valley Bridge.

http://bit.ly/MI-gallery

from Flickr http://flic.kr/p/G1bkRU

Interesting solstice atmospherics at Newgrange

Tonight at Newgrange was very interesting. Having taken pictures of the sun setting behind Newgrange from Staleen, at the Boyne Canal, and then up on Red Mountain, I decided to head to the monument itself with my daughter Amy. We wanted to see if we could see the aurora borealis which had been forecast. On arrival at Newgrange, almost 45 minutes after sunset, we were greeted by the strange and wonderful sight above. There were huge beams being cast into the sky, as if the sun had just set. It might have resulted from some atmospheric scattering of sunlight related to the aurora. I don't remember ever seeing this effect so long after sunset. But it was magical. It only lasted a few minutes - but long enough for me to get some photos, of which the above is probably the best. I have brightened the photo up somewhat. You can see that the floodlight under the steps at the front of Newgrange is already on.

This being the third of the three "standstill" days of Summer Solstice, the sun is at its lowest beneath the horizon for the whole year. Perhaps that had something to do with the above effect.

I got some nice sunset photos from Staleen and Red Mountain, and then we stayed at Newgrange to watch Venus, Jupiter and the Moon and got some photos of those before heading home. I will post more photos tomorrow.

Lugh of the Long Arm carries the sun across the sky on the longest days of the year

See also this new video explaining some of the astronomy and mythology behind this event.


The longest days of the year have arrived. The sun's rising and setting positions have reached their most northerly points along the horizon and these rising points are now "standing still" - hence the word solstice, or in Irish grianstad, meaning, literally, "stopped sun".

Orion "carries" the sun across the sky on the three longest days of the year.

The further north you are located from the equator, the longer the days in summer, and the shorter in winter. Here in Ireland, in the Boyne Valley, the sun rises before 5am on Summer Solstice and sets around 10pm. Even in the middle of the night, there is no real darkness as the whole northern horizon remains bathed in light. This is a result of the fact that the sun does not go far enough below the horizon at midsummer for Astronomical Twilight to end.

The sun is crossing over the Milky Way right now.

Something else that's really interesting is happening right now as the sun crosses the sky on these, the longest days. If you could somehow darken the sun, like what happens in a total eclipse, you'd see that the sun is currently positioned directly above Orion. In fact, at Summer Solstice in this modern epoch, the sun appears to be "carried" across the sky by this great anthropomorphic warrior/god/hunter constellation, in his upraised arm. Further to this is the fact that the sun is currently located in one of the two positions where it appears to "cross" over the Milky Way. Astronomers today call the sun's path the ecliptic. This imaginary ring through the sky intersects the Milky Way in two places - one above Orion and the other beneath Ophiuchus, between Sagittarius and Scorpius. It just so happens that in our lifetime, these positions correspond with the location of the Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice sun, respectively.

It is fascinating that the Boyne river, along which the greatest megalithic passage-tombs in Europe were built, has a name that is the same as the old Irish name for the Milky Way - Bealach na Bó Finne, the Way of the White Cow.

In mythology, there are many gods and warriors, but some particularly interesting ones which we examined in Island of the Setting Sun - In Search of Ireland's Ancient Astronomers. One of these is Lugh Lamhfada, Lugh of the Long Arm (or the long throw, perhaps). In the ancient mind, was it perhaps Lugh who was seen to "throw" the sun, moon and planets from his upraised hand?

Amergin's poem, on a photo of the Boyne estuary where he
arrived in Ireland with the Milesians.

There are other characters of mythology that are interesting. Amergin, leader of the Milesians, was known as Amergin of the Bright Knee. The star that we know today as Rigel has an Arabic name which means "bright knee". Amergin asked "who but I knows the place where the sun sets, who but I knows the ages of the moon?" The Annals of the Four Masters says the Milesians arrived in Ireland at Bealtaine in 1694 BC. On that date, the sun was above Orion, being carried across the sky. Because of an effect of the wobble of the earth's axis called Precession of the Equinoxes, the sun's position on the ecliptic on a specific day of the year (eg solstices, equinoxes) is slowly moving westwards through the ecliptic. When the Milesians arrived in 1694BC, their bright-kneed leader set foot on the shore of the Boyne river at the moment the sun was being carried by the constellation Orion - that might have been known then as Amergin. Nowadays, the sun's position at Bealtaine has moved so that it is beneath Aries. It is on Summer Solstice now that Orion/Amergin/Lugh appears to carry the sun across the sky.

And then there's Cúchulainn, the warrior hero of The Táin Bó Cuailnge, who battles in ford water - a ford being the crossing point of a river. Was he guarding the ford of the sky, as hinted in The Táin?

a fair man facing your foes
in the starlit ford of night.

It is no mere coincidence that Cúchulainn is a son of Lugh. The Milky Way was known as Lugh's Chain and Lugh used a weapon called the Tathlum, which is described as a concrete ball - made of his enemies' brains hardened with lime. Could this be the moon?

To the hero Lugh was given
This concrete ball – no soft missile –
In Mag Tuireadh of shrieking wails,
From his hand he threw the tathlum.

Today, as you watch the sun make its way across the sky on the weekend of the Summer Solstice, it would be nice to reflect upon the powerful imagery. The god of light has the sun in his hand.