
In the interest of wrapping up the summer trip to Ireland neatly, I have one more post regarding that trip.
We all spent one day poking around archaically old druid tombs. Knowth and Newgrange are both rather large burial mounds, and definitely on the must-see list for cool old shit in Ireland. You can read about them on those Wiki links for the history. They are similar, but each has its own cool thing going on as well.
Knowth, I think, was an actual burial mound. They found a LOT of bones in it, and there are lots of extra little mounds littered around it.


It also has a LOT of carved stones circling the outside of the main mound, and they’re all different:


It also happens to have the longest catacomb in a burial mound in the world, and the coolest part is that it’s been excavated, so you can actually go inside! You can’t wander around freely, but it’s still neat to see. The picture at the top of this post is from inside Knowth.
Then there’s Newgrange. All the Irish people I’ve met have been proud to tell me that Newgrange is even older than the pyramids, and is fact one of the oldest preserved monuments in the world. It has been reconstructed to some extent, especially the outside:

The deal with Newgrange is the way it was constructed. It wasn’t full of bones (there are theories that it may have been more of a temple than a burial mound), and it’s not full of interesting carvings. But, the tomb remains in complete darkness the entire year–except around the winter solstice. At that point, an opening above the entrance permits the light at just the right angle, and the tomb is flooded with sunlight.

The opening in the white stone permits light around winter solstice.
It’s almost impossible to get into the tomb around that time of year. There’s a lottery and everything. But they will do a simulation of what it looks like at other times of year.
And let me tell you, there’s nothing like standing in pitch blackness in a 5,000 year old tomb.
You’re not allowed to take pictures inside the tomb, which is unfortunate, because it’s really very beautiful. I can’t even find a decent picture of the main chamber on the net, so you’ll just have to live with the mystery or go see it yourself!
At any rate, there was lots of pretty scenery around both areas, and the full set of Knowth and Newgrange photos is in my Ireland set on flickr.
FULL SET OF KNOWTH AND NEWGRANGE PHOTOS
* * *
So that pretty much concludes my first adventure in Ireland. I barely stopped moving the whole week. There were other things we did too, of course, like the crazy Welsh circus, Nofitstate. There was also a really lovely rainy day spent at the zoo with Ronan and Pat, where I squeaked over the seals and Ronan ogled at the monkeys and Pat took pictures of us being silly.

Me squeaking over a seal stuffed animal in the zoo gift shop. Photo by Pat O’Reilly.
And there was the night when I was waiting for the late bus with Ronan and Liam and we were sitting on the sidewalk together and some drunk old man walked by and accused me of being a whore. “What’s this? What’s this now? Two in one? Wait till your mammy sees what you’ve been doin’!” And we giggled and I drunkenly sang “Wish You Were Here” on the street.
The last night I was in town, we went back to Fibbers and got smashed and danced and stayed out until 5:00 AM, even though I had an 11:00 AM flight to catch. Aoibhe shook me out of bed at 7:30 in the morning and we somehow made it. Here’s a group shot someone took in the pub that last evening.

From left to right, Pat, Ronan, me, Liam, and Aoibhe.
FULL IRELAND SET
So many good memories. And I’ll be there again, this time for two weeks, in about 60 hours. And it will be full of new memories, ice skating, running around in the cold rain, drunken out-takes, hard cider, English-speaking people, bookstores where I can read the things I buy, clothing stores where the clothes will actually fit me, a touch of awkwardness, and a lot of love.
Look out, here I come.