July 30, 2024
We left Belfast early heading south back into the Republic of Ireland. We have a long day planned exploring the Boyne River Valley. This fertile area has long been the heart of historic Ireland.
Our first stop is at Monasterboice. This is another monastic settlement founded in the 5th century by a follower of St Patrick. Besides a round tower, the site has two exquisite Celtic High Crosses. They are in remarkable condition after being exposed to rainy Ireland for 1300 years. After visiting Derry’s Tower Museum, now I am pondering how they would have looked with colorful paint.
Our second stop is at the Battle of the Boyne site. We are a little early and we missed breakfast so we head to the cafe for coffee and scones. Aimee loves the break and we buy a couple fruit cake slices to-go for lunch. They remind her of the loaves her late Irish godmother used to make every year.
In the Visitor Center we start with the park film. This was a major battle of the Williamite War in 1690. James II, the Catholic monarch faced off against William, his son-in-law, a Protestant who took his crown during England’s Glorious (and bloodless) Revolution. Unfortunately for Catholic Ireland, James was not up to the task. Despite losing few men he turned tail and fled back to exile in France, leaving the war to his Irish and French allies. Today this event is celebrated as THE pivotal battle of Irish history. Interestingly the later and far bloodier Battle of Aughrim of 1691, that we visited a week ago, used to be considered the decisive event. Its date of July 12 is still celebrated by Irish Protestants as their Fourth of July.
Our third stop is at Bru na Boinne, or Palace on the Boyne. This World Heritage Site and new National Park is the premier Megalithic burial site of Ireland. Dozens of mounds are scattered around this two-mile bend of the Boyne River. In this phase of Stone Age burials, Portal Tombs were covered with a cairn of dirt and stone forming huge Passage Tombs. We start in the Visitor Center going through the extensive exhibits.
We then boarded a shuttle bus for our guided tour of Knowth. We visited Knowth on our earlier Irish trip in 1998. Knowth consists of an enormous Burial Mound surrounded by a dozen smaller ones. The central mound has two passage chambers, neither of which is open to visitors. Like Carrowmore, the cremated remains of many bodies were deposited in the internal burial boxes.
The central mound is encircled by 127 giant curbstones, most of which are decorated with megalithic art. We see no human or animal figures. It is all abstract consisting mostly of spirals, wavy lines, circles, and half-circles. It is easy to see how this ancient custom was incorporated into early Christian Celtic art. Afterwards we watched a film about the site. The 5000-year-old art was preserved because it had been buried for most of its life. It was only rediscovered in the 1960s.
We then shuttled over to Newgrange. Newgrange is another enormous passage tomb. However its curbstones have little art. Instead it is faced with pieces of shiny white quartz rock. None of the huge curbstones or quartz rock is local. All of it was transported here with enormous effort. Bewildering for people having to grow and hunt their food, weave baskets, mold clay pots, and tan their leather clothes.
The draw of Newgrange is its passage chamber. It is precisely aligned so that on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, a fleeting shaft of sunlight illuminates the burial chamber.
We are escorted down the shaft by our tour guide. It is narrow and I have to squeeze through. This is the highlight for me. This rather large room at the end has a remarkable corbelled ceiling. I am hoping my Stone Age engineer-ancestors were skilled enough to keep the immense stones from falling on my head. Since this room has been protected for 5000 years, the Neolithic art decorating the interior is exquisite. There is a checkerboard pattern in one niche, and in the opposite a fern, or perhaps a feather, or maybe a sheaf of wheat. The third niche has my favorite, a triple-spiral.
We are running short of time, so we skip the Hill of Tara and proceed to our accommodations in Trim. Our hotel is across from Trim Castle. Aimee is tired of castles, so she goes shopping in the cute town. She buys an Irish Cookbook. I am thinking that it is really a gift for me.
While she is having fun, I keep working and run across the street for a guided tour of the castle Keep. It is great. While the Keep is just an empty shell, the tour guide is a history buff and a fount of knowledge about medieval life. This castle was built by Hugh de Lacy, a Norman knight who followed Strongbow to Ireland. It is the largest Norman castle and from here de Lacy ruled the ancient kingdom of Meath. In modern times, Mel Gibson filmed parts of the movie Braveheart here.
Afterwards Aimee and I met back up for drinks (and our belated Fruit Cake lunch) on the hotel terrace facing Trim Castle. It is warm and sunny. This cannot be Ireland! Aimee has a tasty Orchard Thieves Wild cider draught from the bar. Later we had a Lentil entree at a nearby Indian restaurant and then took an evening walk on the opposite bank of the Boyne River.
