The More I Know the Less I Understand

The other day I needed to go to the post office, but An Post Dunfanaghy closed forever in December, so I went to Falcarragh, the village to the west of us. I had been curious about this thing on the cover of a book.

Since you're probably curious, here are four typical jokes from the collection:

Tractor  

A Yank stopped to talk to a farmer and went on to brag about the size of his farm. He said, "It takes me two days to drive around each field." Our farmer said, "I had a tractor like that one time too but I got rid of it." 

Only Mustard  

A Yank visited an old aunt in the country and she invited him to stay for tea. She set the table and was in the kitchen flying[sic] the bacon and eggs. He was sitting at the table and as he liked mustard, he always carried a little box in his waistcoat pocket, and he put a little on the plate she put in front of him. When she returned, she wiped it off with her apron saying, "I can't keep them dammed hens off the table."

You See Nothing  

A man and wife were leaving after Mass and she said to him, "Did you see your woman from across the road and the hat she was wearing? "No," says he. "Did you not see him in his shirt sleeves like a young fellow?" "No," says he. "Surely you saw the daughter that's home from Dublin and a bit of a mini skirt on her?" "No," says he. "Ali! There no good bringing you to Mass, you see nothing." 

Next of Kin 

An elderly priest came across a dead donkey on the roadside and he rang the local Garda station to inform them. A rather abrupt Garda said "It's the priest's duty to look after the dead." "It is also the priest's duty to inform the next of kin," says the priest. 

I see why these jokes are funny, but I'm not sure I understand everything about their context. Or maybe I do? How would I know?

I read the whole book and there's not a word in it about the picture on the cover. Other sources tell me that it's a pillar with a stone on top called Cloich Cheann Fhaola, which is also the name of the parish, sometimes spelled Cloughaneely (Claw'ha neelee). The name means Stone of the Head of Man With a Wolf's Head.

Whose head of what? A Donegal website explains How Cloughhaneely Got Its Name:

Balor, the mythological king of Tory Island, was widely known as Balor of the Evil Eye. He stole a prized cow from Cenn Faelad, (translates as wolf-headed), who was a chieftain living in this area. The chieftain resolved to kill Balor but his druid told him that Balor could only be killed by the hand of Balor's own grandson. Balor, aware that his enemy knew his weakness, kept his only daughter Eithne locked under close guard in a tower on the eastern end of Tory. Cenn Faelad, assisted by his banshee and disguised as a noble lady, succeeded in gaining entry to the tower and when he revealed himself to Eithne she immediately fell in love with him. Nature took its course and when Cenn Faelad returned to the mainland, he left Eithne with child. She gave birth to male triplets but when Balor found out that his security had been breached he ordered that the children be drowned. One of the children survived and was fostered by his uncle, Gavida, the blacksmith brother of Cenn Faelad. (Source.)

Now wait a minute. This is a Tuatha dé Danann story I've heard before: Lugh's mother Eithne's imprisonment, and his father Cian who owned the magic cow. This local version is different. 

Continuing:

Balor, outraged by Cenn Faelad's plan to kill him, went to the mainland and seized Cenn Faelad and laying his head across a large white stone he severed it with one blow of his sword. A red stain, said to be Cenn Faelad's blood, can still be seen on the white stone which is called Cloch Cheann Fhaola (The Stone of the Head of Cenn Faelad) or the Cloughaneely Stone. The stone weighs a ton and a half and in 1774 Wybrants Olphert of Ballyconnell House, with the help of a party of Royal Navy sailors, managed to raise the Cloughaneely stone on to a sixteen foot high pillar. The inscription on the stone read, “Clog-an-Neely. Erected 1774 by Wybrants Olphert and Sarah, his wife.” 

I totally wanted to see that stone, but it's not on any of the maps I usually consult. I knew it was somewhere on the estate of of Wybrant and Sarah Ophert: Ballyconnell House near Falcarragh.

Old entrance gate to Ballyconnell.

Falcarragh is in an gaeltacht (Irish speaking area), and the old estate is now owned by the Údarás na Gaeltachta, the development agency for the gaeltacht. The house is boarded up. Local people raised money to use the forest as a ParkRun. They have a race every Saturday, but during the week it's deserted. 

I wandered around the ParkRun paths for two hours looking for the Cloich Cheann Fhaola. 

The drawing shows Muckish behind it, so it must be near the spot where I took this photo. But I couldn't find it. 

I found loads of other cool stuff though.

Ballyconnell House

This is the grave of the last landlord, who died in 1917, and didn't see his house occupied by the Irish army and then turned into a Catholic School. There are probably local stories about that transition period, and I hope I hear them someday.


I think this is a well, but it's not on the ordnance map.

There's a pond nearby, similarly overgrown. Maybe someday there will be people and money to restore them. 

The well has steps going down to it, and a white quartz stone set in the wall opposite the bottom step. If it was a holy well at one time, it would have been inside the wall of the estate, and I doubt the landlords would have allowed anyone to use it for Catholic rites. Maybe it is just the well for the house.

The bluebells are in full bloom right now. 

Photos can never capture them.

The forest is full of those exotic specimen trees Victorians loved collecting. There was a eucalyptus near the walled garden that smelled like California.

Lots of native trees too, which had little plaques giving their names in Irish and English.

I think that's a cork oak beyond Pippin. It didn't have a plaque.

There are two huge Monterey Cypress near the house.

The plaque didn't have the Irish for Monterey Cypress. 

And one of those weird trees Victorians also planted in Santa Cruz.

At the side of the house is another pond that curved through a sycamore wood very prettily, with trees and white stones set on an island in the middle of it. Now it's overgrown and wrecked. 

And there's a tombstone:

The stone reads:

Kenny 

21 

Falcarragh 

1 7/8

huh. 

The oddest thing I saw is what's inside this arch. On the other side of the wall is the golf course, which were fields or pastures back in the day. This arch was the gate between the house and the fields. Now it's blocked up, and it sort of feels like a churchy alcove. I could see that someone had painted something on the concrete blocks across the old opening. 

It is hard to understand what happened here. Someone painted a female creature with wings offering a bowl(?) to a male human. But they are literally defaced. Someone didn't scratch them off, or paint over them. The faces of those creatures have been literally beaten off, like with a mallet. Those dark patches where their faces used to be are deep holes in the concrete blocks.  

Whoa. 

It was getting late, and I still had to go to the post office. I gave up trying to find Cloich Cheann Fhaola. 

I handed over my parcel: the stack of paperwork requesting another year's visa. Postage was €9. I didn't have any cash on me, but when I tried to use my Bank of Ireland debit card, the clerk said that it wouldn't work in the machine. I didn't even try to ask for that to be explained. I offered to go get cash, if they would hang on to my precious paperwork. She said if I didn't mind. I said I didn't mind, but if I did go get cash, would she do me a favor? "I think I could," she said. I pulled out my phone and asked, "Can you show me where this is?"

She knew exactly where it was, and we began the familiar transaction of her offering a landmark, and me trying to integrate her vague descriptions it into something I recognized. I was doing pretty well, soon understood why I hadn't found it—I had turned down the wrong road. Typical.

Now I was sorted. Then the other clerk told me how to find it in a completely other way, parking at the cemetary next to the National School. 

Both ways will work just as well. Typical Irish answer. I love this place so much. 

I found the stone, underwelming as these phallic monuments always are. The journey is the destination, as they say.

Ballyconnell is gorgeous, full of trees and birds, flowers, and friendly people. It's a perfect village park. But as I said, I've never seen it on any tourist information, and tourists would love it. I'm not a tourist, but I'll never be a local. The post office clerks didn't hesitate to tell me how to get there, twice. But I have the sense that the park is for the locals. But I don't know for sure, and I'm sure I'll never understand. 

What's just an hour from Dublin? The Mountains of the Witch. Skip the Guinness Tour.

This post continues on the theme of what to do if you are only visiting Ireland for a few days. 



Let's say you've already been to Brú na Boinne, Knowth, Dowth, and Fourknocks. You won't have time to get to Loughcrew on that same day. 

If you're only in Ireland for a few days, at Loughcrew you can meditate on a dolman, peer inside a cairn and consider stone carvings thousands of years older than God, turn around to observe an inspiring view, circumambulate a stone circle, sit inside a passage tomb, and watch the clouds go by from The Hag's Chair, a curious stone no one understands. Bring a picnic. 

But first, walk up the hill. Here's the view at the top, approaching Cairn T and a stone circle on its western edge. 

Sacred Ireland Tours has compiled lots of research of Loughcrew, including maps of the entire area, and explains why they are known by their Letter Names. If they're still giving tours, I'm sure they are fantastic, so not having a car is no excuse. 


That same stone circle, looking northwest. 

Until recently, visitors could enter the cairn, but it's become damaged and locked behind a gate while it awaits repairs. The carved stones are still visible. 






I like this view, by Eleanor Thompson. 

The stones inside Cairn T are oriented to the Equinox sunrises. 

Loughcrew is wonderful on any day of the year, and perhaps better when there isn't a crowd. On the other hand, I love  people gathering and drumming on the holidays, celebrating whatever they celebrate in public. 







Another name for Loughcrew is Sliabh na Cailleach, or the Mountains of the Witch. This mysterious stone is called the Hag's Chair. 

Watching clouds from the Hag's chair. 

I was sitting in side this tomb, looking out toward where the sun rises, and I noticed the carvings on the stone beside me. 



Labyrinths left there for the dead. 

As you can see, it was sunny when we walked up, but a storm came on fast, and we had no choice but to wait it out.




In a few minutes, the hail arrived, and we sheltered in the doorway of Cairn T. 

The Sacred Ireland Tours site mentioned I found a photograph of The Whispering Stones, which we didn't try to find, but are near Loughcrew. 

"A pair of stones at Farranaglogh, county Meath, formerly had a very useful talent. They could be consulted, as an oracle and always gave true answers to rightly disposed people; they were especially famous for revealing the names of evildoers. If something had been stolen in the district, you had only to ask the stones, and they gave you the name of the thief and the whereabouts of the stolen property. Unfortunately the stones were sensitive about their dignity and worth; you must listen very carefully for the reply. And so it came about that some careless fellow insulted them by asking the same question twice, since when they are dumb."

Kevin Danagher, Irish Customs and Beliefs

This is my approach to giving advice. The next time you're in Ireland, you'll want to stay longer, and that's all I have to say. 

***

The best article about Loughcrew that I could find online is by Eileen Battersby, a beloved Irish Times critic who died just last year.

Shedding light on the longest day

Jun 21, 2004

Loughcrew, the Hill of the Witch, is the ideal place to be today. Its history, writes Eileen Battersby, is full of myth and speculation.

Imagine a witch, a hag, menace alive in her face, racing across the landscape, scattering stones from her apron in her haste. These pebbles, in falling from the sky, become huge as they touch the earth along a spine-like ridge and create a serene world of stone, shapes randomly arranged across three magical hillsides. This is the wonder of Loughcrew, Sliabh na Callighe, a place of beauty and mystery in the northern point of Co Meath, near Oldcastle, where the flat plain begins to undulate, acquiring a rolling, near drumlin-like topography. On a clear day the view embraces 18 counties.

Whatever the weather, whatever the season, whatever the visibility, Loughcrew - freely accessible, uncompromised, unfettered by development - invariably succeeds in being both familiar and new. The longest day, which dawned this morning, and, particularly, the short nights which surround it, create the ideal mood for investigating mysterious, atmospheric places.

Legend has it that the old hag, the cailleach, believed that were she to fill her apron with stones and leap from hilltop to hilltop, dropping a handful on each of the three summits, she would become the mistress of all Ireland. The game old girl certainly had a go. Perhaps she even rested, mid-effort, as her seat, the Hag's Chair, a massive kerb stone at Cairn T on Carnbane East, still faces north like an immense throne. She may well have sat here, smoking her pipe - she was the assertive type - pondering the next act in her campaign.

Ambition, alas, is a dangerous thing, and as she prepared to make another great leap towards immortality she fell and broke her neck. There she lies to this day, buried on the eastern slope of Patrickstown Hill, lamenting her fate, her voice but a faint screech on the wind, with no one to mourn her save a vast collection of silent witnesses: the stones she scattered. A simple inscribed cross decorates her seat. It is unlikely it was intended as her memorial. Who made this mark, and why, remain yet more mysteries.

So Sliabh na Callighe, the Hill of the Witch - or the Loughcrew Hills, taking their name, as the scholar John O'Donovan suggested in the 1830s, from a small local lake - is a place that lends itself to story, myth and speculation. Whatever the name, whatever about the lady herself, it is obvious that many lie here.

It is a place of spirits. At times the natural peace acquires an eerie resonance. Humans have wandered this spot for at least 5,000 years. Loughcrew is an extensive Neolithic hilltop cemetery, on three relatively flat summits, consisting of the remains of about 30 passage graves built between 3000 BC and 2000 BC but continuing in use in to the Iron Age.

It is one of four major passage-tomb complexes in Ireland, all dating from the late Stone Age. The others are Brú na Bóinne, Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, also in Co Meath, some 35 miles to the south-east. West across the country, in Co Sligo, in a line that looks more deliberate than coincidental, lie the extensive burial grounds of Carrowmore, sketched by the artist Gabriel Beranger in 1779, surveyed by George Petrie for the Ordnance Survey in 1837 and believed to have once included a possible 200 monuments.

High in the eerie Bricklieve Mountains, overlooking Lough Arrow, and also in Co Sligo, is the majestic site at Carrowkeel, a place that enchanted both the great R.A.S. Macalister, scholar and first professor of archaeology at University College Dublin, who liked to see himself as a pragmatist, and Robert Lloyd Praeger. It was Praeger who wrote of his awareness of being the first person to enter one of the tombs since the ancients moved on. Both Carrowkeel and Loughcrew share the glories of the spring and autumn equinoxes. It is possible to experience the sun rise at Loughcrew and, by driving across Ireland, arrive at Carrowkeel to see it set.

All are cemeteries, yet these four Neolithic complexes were also ceremonial places used for celebration. All are open-air art galleries. All are beautiful, with Loughcrew - often host to a flock of grazing sheep, and recently white with hawthorn blossom - possessing a particularly pastoral quality. It boasts its share of decorated stones - more than 120, according to Elizabeth Shee Twohig.

Among the range of motifs is the sun, represented by an equinox symbol of eight rays. Just as the early people respected and honoured their dead, they celebrated, worshipped and certainly observed the sun in its many guises throughout the changing seasons. As at Newgrange, science and ritual meet in creating a mystery.

Cairn T, flanked by six smaller, satellite tombs, is the largest in the complex. Its design is similar to that of the Newgrange mound, albeit on a far smaller scale. The passage, which is intact, is also much shorter than its dramatic, slowly climbing Newgrange counterpart and has an unexpected feature: sillstones over which the visitor must step. Tim O'Brien, author of Light Years Ago (1992), a study of the sun's movements at Newgrange and Loughcrew, suggests that Cairn T was originally covered in quartz, "giving it a white appearance even till recent times, thus earning the name Carn Bane (the White Cairn)". It is an interesting theory, and he also speculates that this use of quartz would have made the cairn visible from a distance.

Standing at the cairn offers a panoramic view that contrasts dramatically with the intimacy of the cairn's interior. Inside are three chambers; the middle one, at the back, is the deepest and obviously most central, between two smaller side chambers. The backstone of the main chamber is a riot of rich decoration, including flower motifs and circles, dominated by the equinox sun symbol. Light filters down on the stone through a grille-covered opening in the corbelled roof of the mound. One cold spring-equinox morning some years ago the burning sunlight appeared as if dispatched by God himself.

Our most recent visit, on an evening of drifting mists, a swallow appeared to be holding court. The small bird observed the humans gathered below, glanced as we placed a few flowers and a broad bean in the main chamber, then flew away. We waited in the grey light, which became luminous and unexpectedly bright. It was as if late evening had suddenly decided to revert to mid- afternoon.Such things happen at Loughcrew. I remember another visit, late on a winter afternoon some years ago, with my special dogs, Bilbo and Frodo. They had been patrolling, shoulder to shoulder, contented. Suddenly, their back hairs rose. The dogs stopped as one and began a low snarling that thickened to a growl only to abruptly stop. They stared up at something apparently only a few feet away. I saw nothing but felt a slow, creeping chill, and we hurried down the hillside.

It is not surprising. Every ancient site houses its ghosts. On another spring equinox a brilliant gold light struck the cairn and appeared to set it ablaze. Just as the December solstice at Newgrange heralds the beginning of the slow death of winter, the March equinox brings with it the promise of the coming summer. An ambivalence surrounds the summer solstice: for all the celebration of the year's longest day there is also an element of regret. Summer peaked today, and now the sun has taken the first step towards the departure that will lead us back to the inevitable darkness of winter, with its long nights, and the vigil that awaits the return of the sun.

There is no summer-solstice alignment at Newgrange, where June 21st is just another day. Celebration instead looks to the Hill of Tara. In contrast to the formality of Newgrange, which has been developed and is as closely monitored as one would expect a World Heritage Site to be, Loughcrew retains its natural beauty. Here it is still possible to wander without being part of an official party in the care of a guide. Unlike Newgrange, Loughcrew offers silence.

Tim O'Brien's book, graced by many beautiful photographs, includes a historic first shot of the beam of direct sunlight striking the backstone of Cairn T, on September 13th, 1986, after a stone at the cairn's entrance had been removed. On Carnbane West stand 14 tombs, including Cairns D and L, both of focal importance. Cairn L contains a passage leading to a central chamber. Cairn H was excavated in 1943, unearthing bone objects decorated in the La Tene style of the Iron Age.

Below the hill, among a stand of trees, is a ruined church associated with St Oliver Plunkett, who was born in Loughcrew in 1625. Yet it is to Cairn T that the imagination returns, because of its relationship with the sun.

As for its modern history, Loughcrew came to notice about 100 years after Newgrange. In 1798 a local landowner called Naper, whose family remains custodian of the tombs and now holds the key to the cairns, had his land surveyed. Members of the Architectural Society of Oxford were treated to a description of the cairns in 1858, while five years later Eugene Conwell discovered, or rather rediscovered, the cairns, publishing an important study, The Discovery Of The Tomb Of Ollamh Fodhla, in 1873. Initial excavations took place at that time.

Practical discovery walks hand in hand with mystery and myth. 
By the mid-18th century the village that would become Oldcastle was established. It seems fitting that the natural beauty of the place will be complemented by an Opera À La Carte production of Don Giovanni, on Friday July 9th and Saturday 10th, at Loughcrew Historic Gardens, nearby. Few could object to the glory of Mozart's music briefly challenging the silence.


Light Years Ago by Tim O'Brien is published by Black Cat Press; Loughcrew: The Cairns by Jean McMann is published by After Hours Books   

Two Castles of East Donegal

Yesterday, we visited Grianan of Aileach. You can see most of Ulster from the top, and it's easy to imagine feeling like a Queen of all she surveys up there. The view hasn't changed, nor the constant and terrific wind. We ate a picnic from our favorite deli, The Counter in Letterkenny.  

Here's Pippen being sorry he didn't eat his breakfast. 



This mountain top is where the O'Neill Kings of Ulster once had their cashel, but some other Irish king destroyed it in the middle ages in retribution for the O'Neill's destroying his castle in Co. Clare. An enterprising Victorian had it rebuilt to look just like Staigue Fort in Kerry.  I wrote about Staigue Fort earlier. 



It's now one of the more prominent tourist attractions in east Donegal, and worth a visit on a fair day. 

You can't see it, but behind Pippin's head in that photo above is Burt Castle. We've driven past it on the highway between Letterkenny and Derry, but until today I know anything about it. 

The Irish Library reprints this description of Burt Castle as it was in 1862. Not much has changed. 

The ruins of Burt Castle are situated on an eminence distinguished as the Castlehill, on the southern shore of Lough Swilly. It was a quadrangular structure, with circular towers at its alternate angles, and was evidently a place of some strength, as there are many embrasures for cannon, and the walls are from four to five feet in thickness, while the merlons of blue purbeck stone are perforated for musketry. You enter, by a ruined archway, what was once the great hall—once, perhaps, the scene of feudal splendour, garnished with the trophies of warfare or the chase, and resounding with the revelry of wine and wassail. The vaulted ceiling, of this, and all other apartments immediately above it, have fallen in, rendering the chambers of the northern tower inaccessible, except by means of ladders. Turning to the left, you ascend by a spiral stone stair, at each window of which there is a circular room lighted by a few embrasures, and vaulted with stone, for no wood has ever been used in any part of the building. From the top the prospect is uncommonly grand and expansive, extending over a space of not less than fifty miles by thirty-seven. Within the circuit of five miles from its base, stood the ruins of several religious edifices, besides another castle at Rathmelton, one at Drumbuoy, and one at Castleforward; but the castles at Inch and Ailagh, with Burt Castle, were border fortresses of "The O'Doherty," the strength of which availed more than the justice of the tenure, in preserving their patrimonial territories to the chieftains of that noble house. Of these, Ailagh, situated within three miles of Derry, was by far the most ancient and important.

Curious Ireland has a quick article about its history, and links to videos. The first one is drone footage showing more of this Lough Swilly area of Donegal. It's very different from where we live. (You'll want to fast forward through the talking parts and just get to the fields and castle parts.) 

He flies the drone down inside the castle which is pretty cool. 

This next one is a 1970s home movie of Grainan of Aileach, Burt Castle, and Newtown-Cunningham, and three cute children. 

Just an Hour and 5200 years away from Dublin

People often want advice about what to do if they are "staying a few days in Dublin" on their way to somewhere else more important like London or Paris. My advice is "leave Dublin ASAP" and "stay in Ireland longer." People will try it their way before they realize I'm right.

If you insist on staying in Dublin, visiting any place an hour away will give you a completely different experience of Ireland. 

For example, you could start with Newgrange (Brú na Bóinne), and the other places described below, and you'll be back in Dublin in time for supper. 

Newgrange? Isn't that a huge tourist trap? No. There's a reason people pilgrimage there for 5000 years. 

"Brú na Bóinne" is the name given to part of the Boyne valley west of Slane in early Irish historical sources. It means ‘the mansion’ or ‘palace of the Boyne’. The sources indicate the sacredness of the area. In Neolithic times, the low ridge north of the river was dominated by three huge passage tombs. Best known is Newgrange, excavated in 1962-75 by the late Michael ‘Brian’ O’Kelly. Knowth with its nineteen satellite tombs, each one a major monument in its own right, now stands beside Newgrange in its vast impressiveness. Another huge but less well known passage tomb lies to the east at Dowth, while as many as twenty more passage tombs, a cursus, stone circles, a henge monument and other enclosures make up what for once can truly be described as a ritual landscape. --Read more.

When we picked our friend up at the DUB airport last month, we spent a few days visiting the Boyne Valley. We started at Brú na Bóinne. Because the season hadn't started yet, the visitors' center and Knowth were closed. Didn't matter.

This is a fantastic little video about the art and archetecture of Brú na Bóinne, featuring Elizabeth Shee Twohig, the head of the Archeology Dept at UCC.

You begin a visit to Brú na Bóinne by crossing its river. Then you visit the carvings on the sill stones around the rim of the mount.  

Visitors to the sites over many years have favourite theories. Many people suggest that some of the spiral and concentric circles represent the movement of the sun and stars, a fascination with the changing seasons and how the cycles related to their own lives. Another theory is that the carvings on the stones are maps: maps of the area, maps of the otherworld, maps of the stars. Many think that the art represents images seen by shamans using hallucinogenic drugs during rituals. Other suggestions include the notion that the carved stones were used as meditation devices or that they represent music or energy line. Read more here.

That triple spiral you see on Irish souvenirs is carved on the passage in Brú na Bóinne. You can visit passage tombs everywhere in northern Europe, but you will only see spirals in Ireland. 

I like to trace them with my finger. It's ok! Touch it.





The tour brings you inside in small groups. Yes, do you feel herded, but go with it. The inside is gorgeous and because no one is taking pictures, you all experience the beauty and a simulated winter solstice sunrise together.









As I said, Knowth (Cnóbha) was closed in March, but are photos when I visited in 2012.


This isn't a great picture, but I left it uncropped so you can see how the sill stones look in an unexcavated mound. 

"The mounds of Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth appear in the earliest Irish literature. The area was considered the domain of the Tuatha De Danaan, the earliest known native Irish gods who had descended from the skies to inhabit Ireland, disguising themselves as a supernatural race of wizards and magicians." Read more.

"Eogan suggests that burials might have taken place at a particular time of year and the ritual was a communal affair, focusing on ancestor worship to encourage ancestors with power and influence to bring good fortune to the community. Based on the discovery that the passage ways at Knowth, one facing east the other west, are filled with light as the sun rises and sets on the days of the equinoxes, illuminating the decorated stones at the end of the passage ways, it could be that there were two such rituals annually at Knowth, one at the vernal equinox (beginning of the growing season, an important time for agriculturalists), and one at the autumnal equinox (fall harvest time, another key time for farmers)." (ibid).

Lewis-Williams and Dowson, and Eichmeier and Höffer have established a neuropsychological model where during altered states of consciousness, geometric entopic phenomena (often referred to as phosphenes), intrinsic to the human nervous system, are “seen” by those in the altered states. The theory has been successfully tested both under laboratory conditions and in ethnographic situations, and the stage I entopic component of the neuropsychological model seems universal. (ibid)

Is it too much of a stretch that psychonaut fairies created these patterns in stone? Not for me it isn't. But I'm not a scientist.  The chief archeologist of Knowth would not agree:

So Knowth turned out to be no less spectacular than Newgrange, and with no fewer than eighteen satellite passage tombs around it, each one a major monument in its own right, in some respects more impressive than the more famous site. As at Newgrange, George found dark granite cobbles brought from the Mountains of Mourne 60 km to the north, and white quartz stones from the Wicklow Mountains a similar distance south. At Newgrange, Michael O’Kelly believed that the quartz stones formed a vertical patterned wall flanking the entrance and reconstructed them to make a dazzling white approach to the tomb. It is an attractive idea, especially to those of us familiar with the notion of dazzling white chalk barrows in prehistoric Wessex, visible from afar. But the modern reconstruction uses cement to hold the stones in the near-vertical wall. Without cement, the thrust from the mound would have caused the collapse of the wall in no time. The white quartz must have been used in some other way. The smaller amount of it at Knowth was probably spread on the ground, perhaps for ceremonial purposes. ‘And what about the megalithic art?’ I asked. ‘Do you believe in these current ideas about it being inspired by shamans under the influence of drugs?’ A slight pause. ‘No’ he said abruptly, and seemed to want to change the subject. (Read more.)

As I said, the visitors' centre was closed, but when I was there in 2012, this display of a Knowth sill stone quotes Elizabeth Shee Twohig. 

"In general there is a very strong case for the argument in favor of some at least of the motifs in megalithic art being derived from altered states of consciousness." 

The last of the three great mounds is nearby, on a narrow lane with parking for two cars at the side of the road.  No visitors' centre or crowds. 





Here's a video on Vimeo that shows what it is like to walk up to the top of Dowth. 

"The Irish name for Dowth is Dubad, which means 'Darkness'. In the mythology of the Boyne Valley, Dowth was the Brú of the Druid Bresal, who was attempting to build a great tower which could reach up to the heavens. Bresal employed all the men of Ireland to build the tower in a single day, and to this end his sister cast an enchantment that the sun will not set until the tower was complete, a reference to the solstice sun setting in the south chamber."

"However, her brother was overcome with lust and commited incest with her, breaking the enchantment and causing the sun to set before the tower is built. 'Night has come upon us', lamented his sister, 'and Dubad shall be the name of this place forever'. This mythological origin of the name fits the cairn as both the internal passages are oriented to sunsets, one to Samhain when the sun 'dies' for the year as it goes underground, the other to the longest night of the year, the winter solstice sunset." (Read more.)

It is difficult to see, but Brú na Bóinne is that white spec to the left of the trees. 

There is one more stop on your way back to Dublin.  It's best to visit after you have seen the other three mounds. 

You can find Fourknocks easily on the map. Once you do, read the sign and drive another mile down the road to the White's house. Knock on the door and ask for the key. You'll need to leave a €20 deposit. Return to Fourknocks and open the iron door to the tomb. You'll probably be by yourselves. 

Not this kind of mushroom. These are wood ears growing on oaks on the path to Four Knocks passage tomb. 

Here's some woo:

"Geomancy is the study of the more subtle forces in nature such as energy ley lines, underground water etc. At the Fourknocks I there seems to be a spring over which a pole or stone was erected in the stone age. Although the spring does not reach the ground surface it does exude two underground streams which flow from the centre of the chamber in a south easterly and a south westerly direction.(marked blue in diagram) The North-south energy line seems to connect with the hill peaks of the south of the chamber and is very close to the alignment of the rising of Cassiopeia. The east-west energy line seems to be more sinuous and seems to meander slightly like a river might. And finally between the recesses inside the stones flows another current (all energy lines are marked in purple). Anyone with sensitivity may access the energies and feels like a tingle in the hands and fingers. Alternately a dowsing rod may be used to divine their presence." (Read more.)

"Taking a representative sample of art work from the Fourknocks I it can be seen how the art incorporates the Φ relationships, thus demonstrating at the very least that measurements of length and breath were taken into account and the designs were executed according to a plan rather than being random. It indicates that some sort of underlying organized grid system was in use that could be expanded to be used on a larger scale such as in the design of the cairn and most likely in the placement of the cairns in relation to one another." (ibid)

We didn't know any of that when we visited. We just sat quietly. The modern roof has tiny openings and the sunlight illuminates the alcoves and rock art.