Newgrange and Monasterboice, County Meath, Ireland

Photos all enlarge when clicked on

My husband and I took a half day bus tour west from Dublin to County Meath, and into the Boyne Valley past the beautiful and historical Boyne River. The river passes the Neolithic passage graves at Knowth, Newgrange, and Dowth, which are of archaeological significance, and the nearby Tara, the seat of the high kings of Ireland. The river was also the scene of the famous 1690 Battle of the Boyne (to read a synopsis of the battle click on link)
Our destination was Newgrange, one of the best examples in Ireland and in Western Europe, of a type of monument known to archaeologists as a "passage-grave" or "passage-tomb". It was constructed around 3200 BC. This makes it more than 600 years older than the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, and 1,000 years more ancient than Stonehenge! Passage tombs are so-called because of the internal passage which leads to a chamber where the burned bones of the ancestor were placed. Newgrange so famous is that on each winter solstice on December 21, the rising sun shines through an opening above the door of the tomb and illuminates the entire passage.

Newgrange was "rediscovered" in 1699. The landowner at the time, Charles Campbell, needed some stones and had instructed his laborers to carry some away from the cairn. It was at this time the entrance to the tomb was discovered. Newgrange mound should be properly referred to as a cairn because it consists of water-rolled pebbles, each of which is between 6 to 9 inches across. The entire mound contains an estimated 200,000 tonnes of material, and it has been estimated construction would have taken about 30 years using a workforce of about 300. Professor Michael J. O'Kelly excavated and restored Newgrange from 1962 to 1975. He was Professor of Archaeology at University College Cork from 1946 until his death in 1982

Twelve Standing Stones survive of what may have been an arc at the front of the mound or possibly a complete circle of about 35 stones surrounding the mound.


The entrance, in front of which is a massive curbstone (10 feet long, 4 feet high) carved with spirals and lozenges, incorporates a roof box which allows the sun, at sunrise on the morning of the winter solstice on December 21, to penetrate the full length of the interior passage all the way to the main chamber. So great is the demand to be one of the few allowed inside the chamber during the solstice that there is a free annual lottery, with around 50 people chosen out of tens of thousands, and application forms for the lottery are available at the visitor center.

The interior is solid, except for a single stone-lined and stone-capped passage 62 feet long and 3 feet wide which terminates close to the center of the mound in the main chamber with a corbelled vault 20 feet high and three recessed chambers. There were three large curved stone basins in the innermost room which are speculated to have been designed to hold the remains of cremated bodies. The roof was made so that the chamber was completely waterproof from above the ground rain and drainage.

We were escorted inside in small groups, by a very interesting and informative guide, to view the chamber, and the winter solstice phenomenon was dramatically simulated for us. I would have loved to have been able to take photographs inside, but obviously, we weren't allowed. Some photos of the interior designs and fascinating roof can be viewed here. There are some videos on Youtube of the sun solstice, just put "Newgrange" into the search box. You can view part three of one recorded onto Youtube from Irish TV here.


Here I am standing next to a standing stone so you can get some perspective. How the ancient peoples were able to transport and place these massive stones is such a mystery!

The view I had when I turned around from the photo above and looked down into the beautiful valley below.


A shot of the Newgrange mound from the bottom of the hill to show the perspective of its size seen in its entirety.

Close up of a curbstone design. This curbstone was almost directly in the back behind where the entrance would be on the other side of the mound.

Another look at the entrance and the decorated curbstone in front. In 1993, Newgrange and its sister sites, Knowth and Dowth, were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because of their outstanding cultural legacy.


As part of this tour, we were also taken to a nearby small rural cemetery in County Louth called Monasterboice. It was founded in the late 5th century by St. Buite, a disciple of St. Patrick, who died around AD 521 and was an important center of religion and learning until the founding of nearby Mellifont Abbey in 1142. The site houses the ruins of two churches built in the 14th century or later and an earlier round tower, but it is most famous for its 10th century high crosses.


Muiredach's High Cross is regarded as the finest high cross in the whole of Ireland. It is named after an abbot, Muiredach mac Domhnaill, who died in 923, and features biblical carvings of both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.
The cross is about 18 feet high. In the photo above you can see the tour guide describing the biblical carvings to our. group

The east face shows Adam and Eve and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Cain and Abel, Moses striking the rock, Samson toppling the pillars and David with the head of Goliath, while the west face shows the Flight into Egypt, the baptism of Christ, Christ being mocked by Roman soldiers and Christ in the tomb. To see other carvings and their description go here. The crosses are thought of as "sermons in stone" used to teach the masses about the bible, and also as status for the church or patron.


The North and West crosses are also fine examples of this kind of structure, but these have suffered much more from the effects of the weather. The photo below is of the north cross

There were ruins of a 110 foot round tower. Round towers were built during the 10 and 11 century in Ireland in reaction to Norse raids on monasteries, and they were used as watchtowers, belfries, and repositories for church valuables. Records indicate that the interior of this tower went up in flames in 1097, destroying many valuable manuscripts and other treasures.

The West Cross, below, is located near the round tower in the western corner of the site, is 21 feet high, thus making it one of the tallest high crosses in Ireland. Also dating from the early 10th century, it is more weathered than Muirdach's Cross, especially at the base, leaving only about a dozen of its original 50 panels distinguishable.


Monasterboice is still an active cemetery for local people, and we saw many new graves interspaced among the very ancient. Our guide pointed out the gravestone below and told us the interesting story of how it was erected by an American from New York in memory of his family who had migrated away from this area in Ireland and who had lived an died in New York, New Orleans, The West Indies, and including one brother who died off the coast of Africa. I thought it was a good example of the long Irish diaspora during and after the famine years until very recently.


I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the sights from the very interesting and mysterious Newgrange and Monasterboice that have given us a peek back in time.
We made one more all day trip to the Southeast of Ireland, including the Waterford Crystal factory, before we left Ireland, and I'll show the highlights in my next blog entry.