Ireland '23 - Day 14 - Boyne Valley - Tara & Nowth/Newgrange

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Bru na Boine

On Thursday after breakfast, four of us checked out of Camden Court & took a cab to Dublin airport, where we crammed our stuff into a modest-sized rental car, such that driver Roger had no rear view other than side mirrors. 

Once we escaped the airport complex, we drove NW into the town of Swords, for coffee & to get our bearings. The coffee was great & Mary synched her phone maps w/the car, which worked well for the rest of our 3 day driving trip. 

I enjoyed being co-pilot to Roger on the drive there, mostly out in the country. The Hill of Tara is historical & mysterious, the initial mystery being the complete lack of signage, or references to Tara, on the entire drive, like it doesn't exist.         

The entrance to Tara is through an old churchyard. 

	entrance		fall light
		Tara mounds in the distance		local church from 1822

The Hill of Tara is an ancient ceremonial and burial site for the Kings of early Ireland, in Celtic times a warring bunch of Clans. 

Aerial photography and GPR (ground penetrating radar) have identified 60 burial mounds here, the most important being The Mound of the Hostages, which according to archeologists, contains the cremated remains of generations of high-status individuals, from the Neolithic era. (4,000 - 2,500 bc) .  

Millenia later, in the 800s, this was an important Celtic stronghold, not unlike the Rock of Cashel. Game of Thrones, anyone ? ....this is where it really happened (minus TV fantasy elements & nonstop ads for big trucks & hamburgers). 

Tara is an impressive hill, with a 360 degree views. On a clear day the North Sea can be seen, but, today was hazy, as the 4th photo shows.   

	mound of the hostages				mounded earth
		view to the north		church ruin, a mile to the south
	Stone of Destiny		Mary & Doris		exiting the place

There's more on the Hill of Tara in the Postscript.

When we arrived at the modern & impressive Nowth/Newgrange visitor center, we were early & enjoyed soup or a scone (or both) at the cafe, plus coffee or tea. 

We were on time for the guided tour with a shuttle taking about 15 tourists to each site. 

	Mary & Roger at the visitor center		River Boyne		looking downstream, see note
		a wool cap is comfortable in this weather		Neolithic burial mounds at Nowth		construction details
	stairway to the top of Nowth		Newgrange is a  5,000 year old passage tomb		the mound front wall
		spiral patterns		Neolithic construction w/ some restoration
	entrance to passage tomb		group photo

note - a guy who worked at the Newgrange site said to me (on the bridge) that a lot of rain in the last two weeks brought the river up & out of its banks, filling floodplain areas, as the photo shows. It reminded me of a certain pothole on highway 72, near Killorglin, eight days ago, due to the same storms.

Newgrange -The docent took us to the center of the Newgrange Monument, inside a 100 ft. long passage, and I had to duck repeatedly to avoid hitting my head on huge stone slabs. It was narrow and the size of the boulders and exquisite placement all around us was beyond belief. 

Once 15 of us were in the small central chamber, the Docent turned all lights off for a few minutes, and then the group saw a representation of how the first rays of the rising sun might look, a finger of intense light, illuminating the center of the chamber, on the winter solstice day (Dec. 21) sunrise, for only a few minutes, once a year.   

Later we drove NE for an hour to the tiny town of Carlingford, in a mountainous coastal setting. We checked into the comfortable Mourneview B&B, and once freshened up, drove into town for dinner at the Carlingford Arms. It was a ten minute drive.

The streets are cobbled and no traffic is allowed in the small town. Part of the original City Wall still stands and we walked under a well-preserved archway.  

At the town's main hotel & restaurant, a charming woman from Ghana in colorful dress served us and you could see she was well-liked, and drinks & food were flowing. An old Irishman at a money box on a wood counter, near the entrance, was using a pencil stub to add up how much patrons owed & they expected cash. It was vintage modern Ireland !   

Across the street was a Pub with live music, and local small-town-ness was refreshing; people wanted songs to sing or clap to, but it was all American rock standards & not Irish music.  (Did I really come to Ireland to hear songs I've heard at home, say 60,000 times, since the 1970s ?)

We were out late that night, but back home at 11 pm.  

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Postscript - back to the past.. Antiquity & Monuments Dept.  

Hill of Tara - there's no visitor center (thus no kitchen magnets or t-shirts), no historical displays or handouts, not a single scrap of information provided, and you're on your own here, so go forth & wander around, like I did. 

It is an intriguing site, after all, the view is vast & inspires wonder....you can let your mind wander, imagining the past and perhaps how to defend the site. Archeologists agree that this is one of the most important ancient sites in all of Ireland. 

Newgrange - To think that a large group of well-organized people who lived 5,000 years ago constructed this immense burial monument and oriented its one & only narrow entrance to align perfectly with a single day's sunrise, in the solar year, the main effect lasting only a few moments, is astounding. 

Yet what a moment it is ! ....the start of a new year and possibly a profound symbol of rebirth, brought about by the cosmos, with amazing precision ! The Neolithic mind at work..... 

The Neolithic people were genetically identical to us moderns in every way, but had no written language. They were the first humans to collectively grow crops & raise animal herds, and celebration of the (Dec. 21) winter solstice, at this and other monuments throughout the Neolithic culture,  must have provided meaningful assurance to farmers, that winter will inevitably end, and planting season will come, no matter how bad the present winter may be. 

I see Newgrange as one of the world's earliest solar clocks, and another demonstration of Neolithic celestial intelligence (similar to stone circles).     

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