Newgrange, Knowth - Passage Tombs, Ireland

Day 3

After another night of altogether too little sleep, we headed back down the 6 flights of stairs for our appointment with another huge Irish breakfast. Today we couldn't return to our room for our customary nap because we were headed for our first neolithic venture. Carol had booked us with a small tour operator to drive us up to Newgrange where we would have a guided tour of both Knowth and Newgrange, prehistoric wonders predating the Pyramids. They are so incredible, and the implications as to how and why they were constructed and by whom leaves one quite bewildered. One cannot leave such places without a deep sense of awe and mystery, not only about the ancient builders but also on the meaning and purpose of our own lives. Labeled as passage tombs, I wonder. Was the veil separating various worlds or dimensions more transparent in those times? Could initiates move between different realities at will? How were these massive stones moved? As there are no written records to explain these structures, everything is conjecture. Nobody knows anything for sure, which means that anything is possible. The forces that govern the world today may very well be quite different than those operating some five thousand years ago.

Crawling through the entrance to Newgrange and up the passageway to the end of the tunnel, the docent explains the corbelled technique the builders employed to seal the chamber. The symbols chiseled into the stone must have had a meaning, purpose or function of some sort, yet they remain unexplained. Before returning to the outside world, the docent turns off the light for a minute or two, plunging the group into complete darkness. It's an eerie feeling being inside a 5000 year old passage tomb that might very well not be a tomb but rather a mysterious passage to some unknown destination or dimension. This hypothesis is not as far fetched as the current explanation for these structures. Consider the amount of time and energy that would have had to be expended by a small population of neolithic people to provide a tomb for one person or even a family of people? Not likely. There's nothing in the historical record to suggest that a massive construction and engineering feat such as Newgrange could have been undertaken for the the sole benefit of a single person or family. Whatever its purpose, it had to have had some tangible benefit for the entire settlement. Whatever the ultimate explanation, I do believe it will not be the one that historians are currently peddling. It was nice pondering all of these things as we walked along the beautiful River Boyne back to our pickup point.

The bus ride back to Dublin had me in a contemplative mood. The whole complex is mind blowing; there really isn't any other way to describe the ruins. Just strolling the site is beneficial regardless of conclusions. The ruins force one to consider other realities and trains of thought. Shutting out the noise of everyday modern life even for an hour or two is undoubtedly restorative.

Along O'Connell Street we found a pizza place and traded impressions over a slice or two. Carol was equally impressed with the ruins, feeling that Knowth was the more mysterious because there were considerably more stone inscriptions to ponder than at Newgrange.