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........

Moon and night sky over Newgrange

There was a beautiful sky over Newgrange tonight. There was a lovely half moon peeping out from behind cloud that was moving along nicely, creating this lovely effect.

One of my best shots of Newgrange to date

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

Tara calling - Anthony Murphy speech video

The M3 - a Fomorian influence - my speech at the launch of the book 'Tara Calling' by Carmel Diviney

Here is the text of my speech at the launch of Carmel Diviney's book 'Tara Calling' which took place on November 6th 2014 at the Irish Writers Centre in Dublin.

Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests. It gives me great pleasure to be here tonight to speak at the launch of this very important book. When Carmel asked me if I would say something, I was both honoured and daunted. What would I say? She said “don’t worry Anthony. I have heard you speak many a time so I trust you will say what comes from your heart anyway”. So here goes . . . a little something from my heart.

Carmel Diviney signing her book at the launch.

As many of you will know, I have written a fair bit about Ireland’s ancient monuments and mythology, and I hold these things as great treasures, treasures not only of a nation or a culture, or a specific race, but treasures of the heart, and of the soul. Am I the only one with this view? Thankfully not. Does everyone hold this view? Sadly not.

I have a great interest in the invasion myths, and in the Tuatha Dé Danann. Our whole history, both mythically and in reality, has been one filled with invasions. And those myths continue to resonate today. They are not mere fireside stories of old. These myths are relevant to a great deal of what’s been taking place in Ireland in recent years, in the political, social, religious and economic affairs of the nation. In the Second Battle of Moytura, the Tuatha Dé Danann battled against the Fomorians. The Tuatha Dé were a divine race. The Fomorians were a destructive one. In my opinion, the Battle of Moytura never ended. It is an eternal battle, one which continues to play out today.

The late John Moriarty (the genius that he was) captured it in an extraordinary insightful way when he said the following:

The Fomorians have chosen to shape nature to suit them. Surrendering to it, the Tuatha Dé Danann have chosen to let nature shape them to suit it. Our way now is wholly Fomorian. It isn’t working, or, rather, it has proved to be utterly disastrous;

Over the past 15 years in Ireland, it seems that there was a distinct Fomorian influence manifesting itself in the events and happenings of the country, something that entered into many of the decisions being made on behalf of its citizens. One of these decisions was to route the M3 motorway up the Tara-Skryne valley. But there were many more.

During the so-called Celtic Tiger years, we had deluded ourselves as a nation. We thought the Fomorians were dead and gone. Who believes in fairy tales anyway? We somehow came to think that we could own our own home, no matter the cost. We could borrow three, four, even five hundred thousand euros, and more, and not worry too much about repaying it. The fact was that we had jobs and the banks were willing to lend us the money, so who should worry? And we could even throw in a second property in foreign climes as an “investment” or a holiday home. After all, it was only fitting that the Irish, so long deprived of land and property, should now be able to make their nests in such obviously culturally similar places as Cape Verde, Dubai and the Black Sea Coast of Bulgaria.

While people obviously had a lot of cash in their pockets, and we had never known a time of such plenty, it should have been blindingly obvious that something was not right. There was a huge amount of development taking place. Huge tracts of land were being given over to housing estates, industrial estates, retail parks, apartment complexes, and indeed roads. The plan seemed to go something like this. Let’s build thousands of homes in the commuter belt and people can buy ridiculously expensive homes that they will never get to spend much time in, because they will be racing up and down the new road network to jobs in Dublin from as far away as Cavan, Longford and Laois, and when they get home they will go to their evening job to help pay off the two grand a month repayments on that 40-year mortgage, and they might never get the chance to start a family, or live a life, or engage in their local community. Ah sure we’ll build a few schools and playgrounds and that’ll keep them all happy.

During my time as Editor of the Drogheda Leader newspaper from 2003 to 2007, I wrote about several controversial plans, on which I had considerable personal reservations. One was called the Northern Environs Plan, which in the cold light of day and on “mature recollection” could probably be fairly construed as a plan whereby the local authorities would facilitate developers to make millions creating a vast agglomeration of houses against a pretext of building a much-vaunted and long-called-for access road to Drogheda Port. There was another similar plan for the south side of the town, which, if memory serves me right, envisaged the construction of up to 10,000 homes, and a football stadium. Now that was crazy, especially given that there weren’t even 10,000 homes in the borough of Drogheda at that time. We would have a town of 70,000 inhabitants, the local authority told us. Back then, we had less than half that population. There were vague plans for schools and other community facilities, but the first things to be built, of course, would be the houses and the roads.

Then there was Drogheda Port itself. Having heard local politicians banging council chamber tables for years and years calling for this port access route, without success, we then learned that Drogheda Port Company might not need the road after all because they were planning a new deep sea port somewhere along the east coast. At one time, 11 different sites along the east coast were being considered for this new deep sea port. And what was the one that was ultimately chosen? Bremore. Yes, the one with the megalithic passage-tomb cluster on it. Of course. Sure where better? Anyway, who would care about few auld mounds? Sure everyone knows the Tuatha Dé Danann had gone away to Tír na nÓg and only the hippies and the tree huggers gave a damn about fairy tales and fairy mounds. Everyone else was busy working for Celtic Tiger Ireland. Inc. (Trademark!) Right?

Wood Quay protests? Bunch of hippies.

Carrickmines? Bunch of hippies.

Glen of the Downs? Definitely the tree-huggers.

Authors Anthony Murphy and Gearóid Ó Branagáin at
the launch of 'Tara Calling' in Dublin.

And what about the M3 motorway, this wonderful new road which would enable the citizens of such fine towns as Navan and Kells get home just in time to start their evening job to pay off that horrendously massive mortgage? Surely no one would protest against progress. And sure enough, Fianna Fáil and their government partners waved their magic wand around and raised a druidic incantation, enchanting all the inhabitants of the nation with their appeasing spell. “You shall all have big houses, and fancy cars, and shall dine in nice restaurants and shop in all the new shopping centres and stay for weekends in one of the seven billion hotels being built. And you won’t have to worry about paying for all this. Just put it on credit. It can be paid back at some unspecified time in the future, and sure don’t ya know you might be dead before you even have to pay it off.”

And then the M3 show rolled into town. And those of us who were immune to the spell of the Fomorians were flabbergasted, disgusted and astonished that anyone in their right mind could consider routing a motorway through the Tara-Skryne Valley. But the M3, and specifically the crazy plan for its route through that historic valley, became a grand symbol of the insanity and incongruousness of the Celtic Tiger era. Nothing was sacred. And anyone who dared to suggest that a centre of historical and cultural significance, such as this, which has not many equals in other parts of the world, should halt the wonderful and triumphant march of progress, was clearly nothing more than a hippie or a tree-hugger with too much time on their hands.

I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that the late Seamus Heaney was no hippie.

Heaney said the following of Tara:

"It's a word that conjures an aura - it conjures up what they call in Irish dúchas, a sense of belonging, a sense of patrimony, a sense of an ideal, an ideal of the spirit if you like, that belongs in the place and if anywhere in Ireland conjures that up - it's Tara - it's a mythical site of course.”

And he deplored what he called the “ruthless desecration” of that sacred landscape that the M3 would bring. The hundreds of academics, archaeologists and conservationists from around the world who wrote to the Irish Government condemning the plan and calling for a rethink were also ignored. Obviously the hippies had infiltrated the upper echelons of the fine educational institutions of the world.

While we all stood with mouths agape at the horrendous disregard for culture that seemed to have enveloped Fianna Fáil and their cohorts, and what’s more their utter arrogance and boldness, the plan gained momentum and it was clear we were going to have a fight on our hands. If they ignored all the academics, and the likes of Seamus Heaney, it might have to come down to a stand-off on the turf. And that’s exactly what happened.

Astonished by the relentless speed at which this mad project was advancing, and taken aback by the complete disregard for a sacred landscape shown by the government of the time, the protests and direct action began. With the ongoing legal and political battles seeming to prove fruitless, a band of defenders began their effort to attempt to halt the construction of the M3 through the Gabhra valley.

The battle to stop the M3 was the last desperate fight to prevent the tail of the tiger from breaking the strings of the harp, as Heaney put it. But in truth it was to be the last battle of sense against the insanity of that era. And thus Carmel’s book has a very important role to play in the telling of the history of this time to the generations of the future. Those who protested against the routing of the motorway through the Tara-Skryne Valley were made to feel like outcasts, like wasters and degenerates who were blocking progress towards a wonderful prosperous future. But we knew that we had right on our side. And we knew that the fairy tale of prosperity for all was just that - a fairy tale.

There was, unfortunately, a dark side to the way the direct action protesters were treated by murky, clandestine and nameless agitators of the Government and the agencies through which it did the dirty work of carving up the sacred landscape. I personally heard a number of firsthand accounts of assaults by agents unknown on protesters. And that’s how it went. People who cared deeply and genuinely about their heritage and the landscape were viciously assaulted by the thugs who were in some cases unidentifiable, and who of course were far removed from the authorities, so that the government could always distance itself from any such murkiness. 

I’m delighted to have the honour of launching Carmel’s book here tonight. I want to applaud her, and all of those who joined her either in the direct action activities or in related protests and lobbying and publicising this shameful act of cultural vandalism. These were people who were willing to stand up to belligerence and ignorance, and to say no on behalf of many more people in Ireland and in various parts of the world who wanted the project stopped and re-routed. I know there are those who would say some of you didn’t cover yourself in glory. But from what I could tell, the bulk of the aggression came from those incognito Fomorian agents who were trying to force this project through.

I’m sure there were times when you wondered if it was worth the battle Carmel. I read the passage where you and several others were arrested and detained at Navan Garda station. That must have been one of the low points for you. But then seeing all your supporters in the courtroom must have reassured you. The uncovering of the so-called Operation Bedrock was proof, if it were needed, that a security and policing policy existed in order to “criminalise peaceful and legitimate protesters, and to quell free speech” in the words of Laura Grealish. You had right on your side. The Battle for Soldier’s Hill and the Battle of Rath Lugh were events that defined the struggle of right against wrong. And that’s why your book is so important. It is a chronicle of the events of the time, from the perspective of the protesters. God knows we heard enough from the pro-motorway lobby in the form of politicians and businesspeople and the media during those mad times. It’s important, for the sake of posterity and for a full record of the story of the M3, that the other side of the story is told. And now it has been told, and it is my earnest hope that enough people become acquainted with it so that we as a nation prevent such madness from taking place again.

It’s now 2014. The M3 is long finished. They put some nice tolls on it just to make sure that it’s not busy enough to have been warranted in the first place. They did the same with the M1, and the poor residents of Julianstown who had been campaigning for years for a bypass found no alleviation when the motorway was eventually built. Traffic through that lovely village is now worse than it ever was before the M1 was built. It’s 2014 and still there’s no sign of any movement on a proper rail link to Navan. Of course the M3 somewhat conveniently reduces that need, but if we are to have proper sustainable communities in this country we are going to have to move away from motorways and motorcars towards mass transport. Even better, it would be nice if we could all live and work in our own towns and villages, and enjoy community life a bit more. It’s now 2014, and where are all the bones of the ancestors they dug up from their graves in the Tara Valley? Are they still in a warehouse somewhere? It’s now 2014, and Fianna Fáil haven’t recovered from the disastrous meltdown that started happening to them just as the M3 was completed. Of course, I know lots of you will say that is no coincidence. It’s now 2014, and we’ve all but given away the rights to our oil and natural resources, something that Justin Keating said would be a crime against the Irish people. It’s now 2014, and the government of the day is trying to make us pay for water. The ancestors would turn in their graves, if they were still in their graves.

Carmel, I’m delighted to officially launch your book tonight, and I wish you every success with it. Thank you, from all of us, for all of your hard work putting it together. And I leave you with this thought. The widespread folklore about the Tuatha Dé Danann is that they live on, in the sídhe, awaiting the call to return and bring Ireland to glory. The Fomorians will never win the eternal Battle of Moytura. The Tuatha Dé Danann won’t allow it. The Fomorians might have won the battle, but they lost the war.

No passage-tomb under Millmount?

Millmount might not have been built on a Stone Age passage-tomb, a public presentation of archaeological data heard last night in Drogheda.

However, one intriguing possibility based on the results of advanced archaeological techniques is that it might perhaps have been built on a clay mound, like a barrow, a type of burial monument dating to the Bronze Age, and therefore later than the likes of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth.

Millmount might have been built on an ancient burial mound.

But it's still too early to say for certain what lies beneath the mound of Millmount, if anything. The new data is from the latest phase of the Millmount Archaeological Remote Sensing project, aptly shortened to MARS, because some of the technology being used is out of this world!

The presentation was given by Kevin Barton of Landscape and Geophysical Services (LGS), Conor Brady of the Department of Archaeology, Dundalk Institute of Technology, and Brendan Matthews, the Old Drogheda Society Community Historian.

The data presented last night was generated using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT). The GPR data was taken along eight transects of the mound, and Kevin Barton revealed that the signal "was totally absorbed" by the mound, indicating that it might consist largely of clay. This would seem to rule out the possibility that it is a cairn, built largely of stone, like Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth. There was a possibility of a slight "overlapping of layers" of clay in the mound, but this was by no means definite.

The Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) data was perhaps the most exciting. This involves putting stainless steel electrodes into different parts of the mound and measuring the resistance based on Ohm's Law (Resistance equals voltage divided by current). A series of measurements were taken at the base of the mound, just above the modern revetment wall, spaced at 5 metres apart. There were four distinct "high resistance" areas along the perimeter of the base of the mound, with low resistance areas underneath them. Eighteenth century drawings show that Millmount had four towers around its base, and these four areas of high resistance might correspond to the location of those four towers.

Four sections of the mound were also measured using ERT, and Kevin Barton revealed results from these measurements which appeared to show a quite distinct area of low resistance at the core of the base of the mound. He said this area of low resistance would correspond in his mind to a large clay mound. However,  he said he could not rule out the possibility of a "cavity" in the interior - something like a passage-tomb or maybe a cist grave.

It would not have been uncommon for Bronze Age barrow to be built over a burial, which sometimes might be contained in a cist grave. This is basically a "box" consisting of large slabs of stone.

Community Historian Brendan Matthews suggested that a Bronze Age barrow-type mound might tie in with the mythology of the site, and that as the reputed burial place of Amergin, the figurehead of the Milesians who landed at the Boyne Estuary, a Bronze Age date might be more apt.

Earlier in the night, Conor Brady of DkIT gave an overview of the types of mounds found in Meath and Louth, including passage-tombs, barrows and a large number of unclassified mounds.

Brendan Matthews revealed that a small section of what might have been an earlier revetment wall, set back some distance from the modern wall, was found during a recent "cleaning up" of the site. He also showed a photo of a stone-lined drain which was found near the top of the mound.

Millmount as it looked in the 1740s, drawn by Thomas Wright.

He revealed that no major modifications had taken place at Millmount from around 1672 until the British fortified the site and built the martello tower on top of the mound in 1807-8. But in the mid 1780s a ditch around the base of the mound was filled in, and local people used it for gardening!

The presentation provoked a lot of questions from the audience, and there's no doubt it has focused minds on the possibility that Millmount is not a passage-tomb, and not, as suggested locally, contemporary with the great mounds of Brú na Bóinne.

However, there have been several people who reported in the 20th century that they had been inside a tunnel under Millmount, and so it is obvious from contemporary accounts that there is at least one subterranean passageway in there. Whether this is part of a passage-tomb structure, or maybe a medieval souterrain, or even perhaps tunnels built linking the 17th century towers is a matter of conjecture right now.

At this point, the Old Drogheda Society will be discussing the possibility of moving on to the next phase of the project, which involves a seismic technique that measures the response of sound waves through the monument. That could provide a more definitive overview of the mysterious mound of Millmount.

VIdeo: High Man art installation at Newgrange from the air