Newgrange: Monument to Immortality - publication date October 25th

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

The cover of the new book

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

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

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

Monasterboice crosses and round tower at night

Muiredach's Cross at night with the round tower in the background.
The three stars above the tower are the handle of the Plough.

Muiredach's Cross just after dusk.

The Western Cross with an illuminated round tower.

Monasterboice Round Tower and High Crosses - pictures

Muiredach's Cross, Monasterboice, probably Ireland's
most famous High Cross.

Is there anyone home? The steps up to the round tower
at Monasterboice, Co. Louth, Ireland

The Western Cross and Round Tower

A second view of the Western Cross and Round Tower

A close-up of the Western Cross

Western 

New photos of Newgrange and Dowth

Newgrange in the evening sunset glow. Taken September 8th, 2012.

I thought I would share a couple of recently taken photos from the Boyne Valley. Above is Newgrange taken about 20 minutes before sunset. Below is Dowth, which is the anglicised version of its Irish name, Dubhadh. According to the legend of Dowth, which is about a total eclipse of the sun, darkness fell on the men of Erin when they were making the mound. They abandoned the task, and the king said the place would forever more be known as 'Dubhadh - Darkness'. I think the photo captures that mood nicely.

Dowth - Darkness - in silhouette with the full moon.

You can now pre-order Newgrange book from Liffey Press

I am delighted to report that you can now pre-order 'Newgrange - Monument to Immortality' from The Liffey Press. The text of the book was completed a couple of weeks ago and I will shortly deliver the photos. All going well, the book will be published in mid October and will be launched around that time.

At this stage I expect there will be a major launch in Drogheda or the Boyne Valley followed by a number of smaller launches around Ireland. There will probably be a talks tour too, and I have already tentatively agreed a couple of speaking engagements to help promote the book.

This has been in some ways a very personal and philosophical journey for me. This is not a history of Newgrange necessarily. It does cover a lot of the archaeology and the history of exploration of Newgrange, but it is a much broader work in the sense that it looks at spirituality and maybe the reasons why we are so fascinated by ancient sites such as Newgrange. Here is the blurb from the Liffey Press website which sums it up nicely:

Many people who visit the ancient and magnificent Newgrange monument in the Boyne Valley are driven by some deep longing to connect with their most distant roots. The giant 5,000-year-old megalithic construction evokes awe and wonderment, and a keen sense of melancholy for the community of people who created and fashioned it from stone and earth in the remote past, a people now lost to time. For the past two centuries, archaeologists, antiquarians, writers and researchers have been probing Newgrange in the hope of revealing something about its purpose, and something about the mysterious people of the New Stone Age who created giant structures using primitive technology. What has become clear from these investigations is that Newgrange is a uniquely special place, and that its construction was carried out not by a grizzly mob of grunting barbarians, but rather by an advanced agrarian community who had developed keen skills in the sciences of astronomy, engineering and architecture. In Newgrange: Monument to Immortality, writer and researcher Anthony Murphy goes deep into the mind and soul of his neolithic ancestors to attempt to draw forth some answers to these questions. In a deeply moving, poetic and philosophical exploration, he looks beyond the archaeology and the astronomy to reveal a much more profound and sacred vision of the very spirit of the people who were driven to such marvellous and wondrous efforts.

Where has this Roscommon Bronze Age landscape gone?

This is the sort of thing that makes my blood boil. I was perusing 'Reading the Irish Landscape', an excellent book written by the late Frank Mitchell in collaboration with Michael Ryan. It was first published in 1986 but I have the 2003 edition which is a revised edition. On page 188 there is a lovely aerial photo of a 'surviving' Bronze Age landscape at Knockadoobrusna, County Roscommon, consisting of ritual sites including earthen embanked enclosures, mounds and barrows. That photo is reproduced below:

I decided I would have a look for this fairly pristine Bronze Age landscape on Google Earth, to see if I could find it. You can imagine my horror, upon zooming in on the quaintly named Knockadoobrusna, and seeing that some of the sites in the above photo from the Mitchell/Ryan book appear to have been obliterated by a golf club. See the Google Earth image below:

Obviously I am not armed with enough knowledge to say whether the construction of the golf club was responsible for the damage, but it is clear from comparing these photos that the two monuments visible in the foreground of the Mitchell/Ryan photo appear to have been largely obliterated in the second.

I wonder do the golfers in Boyle really know when they are driving the wee white ball around the place that this landscape, not too long ago, was a fairly well preserved Bronze Age landscape dating back perhaps 4,000 years? And that some of the monuments that had survived until recently were now obliterated under the surface of their fairways?

It is typical of this country, and the sort of madness that prevailed here during the decade or so of the so-called Celtic Tiger, that our most ancient treasures were sacrificed in the name of 'development', and that, ironically, this development now consists in many cases of 'ghost estates' - unfinished housing developments - and all manner of ill conceived projects which have blighted the landscape. The term 'concrete jungle' may be something of a cliche, but it applies to many places around Ireland which were once beautiful. Take, for example, the once quaint and attractive seaside village of Bettystown, County Meath, now a mass of concrete consisting of apartments, retail developments and housing estates.

The site of the destroyed henge (lower left in the Mitchell/Ryan image) at Boyle Golf Course,
Knockadoobrusna, Roscommon. The outline of the enclosure can still be seen.

Unsurprisingly, Roscommon County Council skirts around the issue of where the Boyle monuments have gone in its  County Development plan, even referring to Bronze Age barrow monuments "such as Knockadoobrusna close to Boyle Golf Course". What about the bloody sites that were destroyed???? I say unsurprisingly because, in my opinion, local authorities around Ireland in the past couple of decades have become almost completely pro-development, and at almost any price. Sure what's a few auld ringforts eh?

Welcome to modern Ireland. Well, you can have your bloody stupid golf course. Frank Mitchell would, no doubt, turn in his grave.

Further reading: http://paulmalpas.com/archaelogy/years-ago/

At the Whitechurch standing stones in Co. Wexford

This is me at the site of three standing stones at Whitechurch, County Wexford, last week. It was really something special to see an alignment of three standing stones, which are quite obviously lined up towards Slieve Coillte, which you can see in the background of the photograph. The alignment is too far north for summer solstice sunrise, but may point towards moonrise on the major northern standstill of the moon. Further investigation will take place to determine the alignment.