Dublin area: Newgrange, Hill of Tara, Trim Castle (10/16)

One quirk of our stay here is that we can only rent a car for a few weeks at a time.  That means every 2-4 weeks we have to go back to the airport north of Dublin to swap cars, which is a 6 hour round trip (picture living in Grand Rapids and renting out of Detroit).  On these days we try to hit the road early and and make the most of the trip, seeing things in the Dublin region.

This past time we squeezed in 3 quick sites:

• Newgrange: the largest and oldest tomb(s) in Europe (3200 BC, predating Stonehenge and the Pyramids).  As impressive as the outside is, we also got to go inside the tomb.  It was very powerful.  Unfortunately cameras are not allowed inside, but you can find videos or photos online if you are interested.
• The Hill of Tara: basically a green field full of barrows, where all the high kings -- pre-Viking invasions -- were appointed, and many important communal activities took place.
• Trim Castle: the largest castle in Ireland.  Unfortunately the timing of the car swap meant we couldn't quite squeeze in the guided tour. So instead we found some YouTube videos of the tour afterwards.  And then we watched Braveheart, which features the castle extensively.

NEWGRANGE (and Knowth)

The telescope view of the Newgrange tomb from the Visitor Center (we were bussed to the sites and you had to book well in advance)

The area is commonly referred to as Newgrange, but there are actually three tomb sites in Boyne Valley, and the first one we visited was Knowth (rhymes with doubt).  It is the largest site.  The tombs have passageways and chambers, are covered with tons of dirt, and are ringed with amazing carved multi-ton "kerbstones".  Most of the material (including the mound dirt) comes from 20-50 miles away, which points to some impressive logistics. Also, Ireland was 90% forested at that time, another transportation obstacle.   

The tour guides always make the visit worth it.  The tombs were aligned to the winter solstice so that the sun shone down the passageways one time per year.  Amazing what people already understood 5000 years ago.  Fun fact: the earth's tilt has changed over the past 5000 years, so the current solar alignment is a little different than it was when built. 

Kate explores one of the "souterrains" which served many purposes like storing of food, hiding of people, and escape tunnels.  She bravely crawled all the way through it!

This is the Newgrange tomb.  Newgrange is 4x smaller than Knowth, but it is safe to enter by visitors, which makes it more famous.   Unfortunately, photos are not allowed inside.  But it was an amazing experience, and they were able to recreate sunrise on the winter solstice inside for us which is amazing (the "roof box" passage can be seen above the entrance; this is the path for the sunlight).  You can enter a lottery each year to be one of 15 people allowed to enter the tomb at the solstice.

Some of the ornate carvings on the kerbstones.  Remember this is before the development of metal tools ("wood, bone, stone").  There is a lot of speculation about what the symbols mean, but no one knows for sure.  Some of the carvings are on the backside facing the tomb, which means they were not only for aesthetics; they probably served some spiritually protective purpose too.

The sites also have several peripheral tombs.

 

This is a stock aerial view of Knowth to help you with perspective.  The main tomb is MASSIVE and is about as long as a football field.  It's massive enough that the rectangle on top is where a royal residence was built in the early Middle Ages (c. 500 AD).

Aerial view of Newgrange.  It may be hard to tell that it is much smaller than Knowth.  But it is more ornate.  Fun fact: the three tomb sites were excavated by different professors in parallel, which led to different interpretations and artistic decisions in the restoration.  You can see that with the granite and quartz found on the ground, the Knowth interpretation was that it formed a kind of entry plaza, and the Newgrange interpretation was that it had collapsed from a decorative wall.

HILL OF TARA

One of the noteworthy features on the Hill of Tara is the statue of St. Patrick.  Here he asked the high king's permission to convert the people to Christianity, which was granted.  He famously used the shamrock as a symbol of the trilogy.  If you are curious, a shamrock is a kind of clover, so all shamrocks are clovers, but not all clovers are shamrocks.

The other cool thing to see is the Stone of Destiny, which was the coronation stone until ~500 AD.  Scotland has a similar stone made out of similar rock.  Fun fact: the Irish Gaels (known as Scoti by the Romans) actually settled parts of now-Scotland, displacing the Picts in some parts. So Scotland is actually named for the Irish invaders, and the word Scotland was originally used as a name for Ireland.

Unfortunately it's hard to capture the grassy field at ground level, so here is a stock photo of what it looks like on a sunny day after the grass is cut (which does not describe the day of our visit).

TRIM CASTLE

Trim Castle is the largest castle in Ireland, and just to get the terminology right, this picture is the "keep" which is only part of the castle.  But I think the keep is also the largest keep in Ireland.  The keep is the central building/home within the castle walls.

Another cool view.  Without a guided tour, you only get the aesthetics, without the meaning or function or history.

Another part of the castle, now serving as gift shop.

Again, because our own photos cannot do it justice, here is a stock aerial view.  Quite impressive.

You can see there was some enhancement for the film.