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.