Newgrange, Hill of Tara, and St. Patrick
Forget Wild Wicklow tours: the real expert on Ireland is Mary Gibbons of Mary Gibbons Tours. I went on her Newgrange & Hill of Tara tour last week and learned that she can rattle off facts like nobody’s business. Being the first one on the bus, I got a chance to chat with the bus driver and with Mary herself about things in Ireland. Reckless public spending, powerful unions, government bureaucrats, and the encouragement of bicycling (leading to accidents with cars) were among the evils of contemporary Ireland expounded by the locals.
Newgrange, a neolithic passage tomb (an enclosed structure where cremated ashes are left) predating the Great Pyramids and Stonehenge, was our first stop on a day that started out quite sunny but got progressively cloudier. The site was entirely undisturbed for 5,000 years till archeologists began work on it in the second half of the 20th century. Newgrange is the best known of the area’s many passage tombs, this one being not only the largest but also the one that is aligned with the winter solstice. That is, only at dawn during the solstice will light shine in a special passageway and illuminate the chamber. There’s a lottery to visit during solstice, but the winning ticket comes with no guarantee that it won’t be cloudy or foggy (which, frankly, it probably will).
Then we drove through Slane, which wasn’t really much to see. We caught a brief glimpse of Slane Castle, which is privately owned and occupied by descendants of the local nobility. Since they don’t draw any form of income from the local peasants any more, they pay for upkeep by hosting huge rocket concerts on the grounds once in a while.
Next was the Hill of Tara, which, it turns out, is not really a single hill and is not exactly much of a hill. It’s just a high point in the surrounding rolling countryside, which has been a focal point for inhabitants of Ireland from the Neolithic period to the 12th century. Various features of the area were created in the Stone Age or Iron Age, and a few (like the nearby church and cemetery) are of course quite recent. The whole area is a public park, and the signs don’t give a lot of guidance to explain why one bit of rolling hills is called something like “the Banquetting Hall”, so I left somewhat puzzled.
In honor of the upcoming holiday, I present St. Patrick:
and some views of the cathedral in Dublin named after him (which I visited later that day):
Most of my pictures didn’t turn out well, except for two of a chair that William III sat in:
Mary Gibbons told us about the Battle of the Boyne (1690) on the way to Newgrange, going into exhaustive detail about the various pretenders to the English, Scottish, and Irish thrones. I was surprised to learn that Mary II (of William and Mary) was raised Protestant even though she was the daughter of James II, a Catholic. How did I miss that in history class in high school?
More photos are available in my Newgrange and Hill of Tara and Dublin albums.