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Away with the Fairies- The Travel Diary of an Irish WebFairy

Bru Na Boinne

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by
Niamh
, 09-30-2007 at 05:13 PM (1826 Views)
Today I went to visit what the Irish deem our answer to the Valley of the Kings, Bru Na Boinne.
Knowth

There are three major tombs found in Bru Na Boinne, Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth. Unfortunately you cant visit Dowth due to the fact that it is unstable. This instability was caused by the British Israelites, a group of 19th Century Antiquarians, decided to blow a nice crater in the centre of it while on the hunt for the Grail. It is also important that i state that Bru Na Boinne pre-dates the Pyramids by almost 1000 years. It is older than most of the better known sites like stonehenge.
The First one we went to see was Knowth, The bigger of the three, which is also surrounded by 17 satatile tombs, and has more significant history than the others due to the fact that the site was used for many different things from the Neolithic to the Normans. Which is at least a 5000 year time span.



replica of a woodhenge excavated on the site



Some of the rock art. 2/3 of all megalithic rock art in Europe is found in Ireland, 1/3 of all megalithic rock art in europe is found at Knowth.




View of the Boyne Valley from the top of Knowth

Main Passage of Knowth (cruciform shape-alaigned with rising sun of spring and autumn equinox undifferenciated passage aligned with setting sun) Had to put flash on as was very dark. Turned out quite spooky!

And picture of an early Christian sutterain built into the original mound which also distroyed the original entrence to eastern passage

Not a good pic of me!


now for newgrange! This is the most famous of the three tombs. you can clearly see why!



This is the very famous enterance stone from Newgrange (kerbstone 1)


This tombs passage is aligned with the rising sun of the winter solstice (Dowths passage is aligned with the setting sun of winter solstice)

The countryside surrounding these tombs are scattered with passage tombs and other forms of burials from same period such as Portal tombs/Dolmens, court tombs and bronze age Wedge tombs and Cists. The go from the east coast of meath to the western boarder with Cavan where another lesser Significant site Loughcrew is located.
Was truely a spectacular experience!
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Comments

  1. Virgil's Avatar
    Fascinating Niamh. Thank you.
  2. kiz_paws's Avatar
    Niamh, I humbly thank you for sharing this breath-taking experience with us. I so long to go to Ireland to see all the sites! Gorgeous pictures, too, my friend, thanks so much!
  3. Niamh's Avatar
    I forgot to mention kiz that these where taken with my camera phone again as i forgot my proper one. That first picture of newgrange turned out amazing! The sun had decided to come out by that point.
  4. applepie's Avatar
    I second what Kizzo said. I long to travel to Europe, especially Ireland, so thank you for sharing these pictures. Not too bad for pictures taken with a camera phone. I couldn't do that well;)
  5. andave_ya's Avatar
    Wow, Niamh! Newgrange in the Bru Na Boinne! (Have you heard the song Newgrange? I think Clannad may have sung it originally, but I have the gorgeous Celtic Woman version. And I read somewhere about the legend of how Newgrange was created. .
  6. Niamh's Avatar
    yeah i think i've heard of it Adya. It was truely a magical place!
  7. AimusSage's Avatar
    Wow, looks fantastic, would have been great for something I'm cooking up, if it weren't for the fact that I decided to use something else instead. I might decide to use it after al, but then again, maybe not. Still awesome looking sites.
  8. Niamh's Avatar
    if you ever have any ideas about locations but not sure if something like it exists to spark inspiration, come to me! i'm sure something might exist somewhere. There are alot of magical places in Ireland.
  9. 's Avatar
    Very interesting, thanks for sharing your pics and commentary