Dublin 2

Today was perhaps the most massive yet. I'm astonished by how much we packed in. Here goes a recount...

The morning began in a flurry for Pip and I, because I'd set our alarm for pm, not am. We wolfed down breakfast before the whole family dashed (or hobbled, in mum's blistered case) to the bus station several blocks away to see if the Newgrange bus tour was going ahead that morning.

Thing is, my family and I get travel-snobby about bus tours, and tend to avoid them completely. This is to do with the fact that they're pricey, you get a little over 5 minutes at each stop before you're whisked back onto the coach for another half hour of driving, and you're not left free to choose all the places you go (history-lovers inevitably get roped into shopping trips, for example).

However, in this case we'd agonised a bit because the benefit of taking a bus to see the various prehistoric monuments nearby was that we wouldn't waste time getting lost, and would be able to fit more into our day. We'd asked about a bunch of different tours in the Dublin tourist office the night before, only to be told that most of them don't run in the off-season; that one of them didn't include Newgrange; and that our final hope was that at least six other people would turn up in time for the next morning's Bus Eireann tour.

Well, we got to the bus depot and asked, and were told that the verdict would come at 10 am. It was looking very uncertain, because only 8 people out of a minimum of 10 had shown up.


While we killed time waiting, dad and I wandered over the road to stroll alongside docklands of the Liffey, Dublin's river. Not many boats around, but there were hoardes of seagulls cavorting around us. There's a sculpture set up not far from the bus station, dedicated to victims of the potato famine; it shows a group of exaggerated, skeletal figures trudging towards the port. A man walking his dog had stopped to take a look at the same time we were there, and the animal was sniffing the emaciated statue-dog at the back of the group, as if to introduce itself. An odd tableau. Dad and I wandered back to the depot.

Miraculously, one more person had appeared for our tour, and the driver decided (very kindly) that he'd set out with just 9 of us. We boarded the bus together with an American man and his exchange-student daughter, a German man, and a Japanese girl travelling with her Irish host. Our driver paused "Enya's Greatest Hits" long enough to introduce himself as John, and to welcome us in Gaelic, and we were off. I must admit I was dubious.

The first place we stopped was called Monasterboice, and its claim to fame are two of the best-preserved ancient Celtic crosses in the country, along with an ancient round bell-tower. These are all situated in the middle of an old church yard, though there's no church left. Rather, there's no single, complete church left - the outline walls of several are left half-standing, and new graves have been dug in the middle of them. "Recycling" of space, with a vengeance.

The crosses were cryptically beautiful. John explained briefly what a few of the scenes carved onto each face represented; scenes of the garden of Eden, Cain and Abel... together with older designs of men with intertwined beards in Celtic knotwork designs. You can see a Celtic interpretation of the crucifixion in my photo below. The older of the two crosses was the more obscure, and I couldn't recognise any of the Biblical scenes on it. Back in the coach, however, and seeing that I'd shown an interest, John lent me two guidebooks, one of which explained the carvings at length (the children in the fiery furnace, for example, which had gone over my head). This was the point where I started to realise that this bus tour might not have to fit the stereotype, depending on which questions we asked...


Back onto the coach we went, after the obligatory toilet stop, and we set off once more - passing at one point, mystifyingly, a peacock farm. For milliners' use, apparently. This stretch of the drive was quite long, but John had lightened up considerably and kept up a steady stream of stories as we passed through the Irish countryside. Interesting to see one particular individual's views of life in Ireland; for instance, at one point he mentioned how "fortunate" it was that the church was beginning to lose a lot of its authority over the government. Having been told time and again how fiercely religious the Irish are, the comment was a surprise to me. (Gee, Ele - could people sometimes not fit the stereotype you expect? *Rolls eyes*...)

We disembarked at Newgrange visitor centre. Newgrange, I ought to explain, is Ireland's most famous megalithic passage tomb. There are others like Knowth (which is more highly decorated with carvings), but I think Newgrange is the only one visitors can actually enter. To describe it; imagine a stone tunnel ending in a domed vault - and the whole thing covered under a mound of earth. We know cremated remains of humans were "buried" in passage tombs, and we don't know a hell of a lot else about them except that they held some sort of important religious significance to the people who built them... probably.


The Newgrange visitors' centre is accordingly interpretation-rich, and evidence-poor. It's a tricky balance for the curators to strike - between making up a lovely fiction about the site, and being too cautious to offer up any guesses at all. The compromise seems to be to teach what is known about the people who lived around the area at the time (their tools, what they ate, how they might possibly have built their houses).

Anyhow, we walked through the displays and reconstructed scenarios, and then Pip and I grabbed some sugar-hit food to sustain us (no time for lunch!). Everyone in the centre boarded a shuttlebus which took some 20 of us out to the site for a guided tour. Paul was our guide's name, and he showed us the spiral-carved entrance-stone that was unearthed when workmen were trying to build a road on the site in the 19th century. I can hardly imagine how eerie it must have been to discover a buried tomb passageway,and to pull the stone away from the entrance... (yes, I got caught up in the atmosphere at this point). Most of the entrance has been "revamped" by the archaeologists of the 19th century, but take a look at that entrance stone:


We climbed the stairs of the reconstructed entry-way, and walked into the passage itself. It's very narrow in parts, and you have to duck your head to fit under the modern-day concrete supports. After about 5 metres or so of passageway, the rock walls open out into a vault, just big enough to fit the group of 20 or so. The vault is incredible, considering that it must be roughly four metres high... and despite being constructed thousands of years ago, using only overlapping stones without mortar, no reconstruction or reinforcement has been needed at all. That is what is meant by "monumental" building.

Around the end-chamber are three niches - those, plus the entry passage, radiate like the arms of a cross. The niches contain intricate carvings, as well as large "basin stones": function unknown but happily guessed-at - they might have held offerings; they might have held water or sacrificial blood; they might even have been places used to birth Irish kings. I was cheeky about that last idea, and asked if there was any evidence to support the interpretation at all... that got a grin from our guide, and an admission that it was just a good story he liked to tell. Legend has it that the Irish hero Cuchulain was conceived in the passage tomb at Newgrange... all I can say is, it seems like an extremely uncomfortable place for it. >.>

I noticed a lot of graffiti and names carved on the walls inside, with dates like 1874 scratched out of the rock. Paul explained that for a while after the tomb's rediscovery there was full public access. Interesting thought occurred to me - at what age or what point does it stop being vandalism, and become "history" instead?

The tomb is spectacular in a lot of ways, but particularly for its engineering. It's designed so that at Winter Solstice each year, the sun shines straight up the passageway and into the niche opposite. There's a lightbulb triggered during each tour that simulates this effect, but it only gives you a vague impression. Our guide, who had been lucky enough to see the actual event, says the sun illuminates the entire chamber in a golden light. The spectacle is so sought-after that the authorities have set up a lottery; the only way you can ever get to see Newgrange at winter solstice is by being an employee; the Irish prime minister; or by winning a place in the lottery. You see, the chamber isn't big enough to fit the 28 000 people who put their names down each year.

After an hour or so it was back on the shuttlebus, and back on our own bus. Our final stop was the hill of Tara, which is the legendary seat of the Irish high kings, and has more history and mystical significance than you could poke several sticks at. As the bus approached the hill, which is visible from a great distance, John explained to us that an argument of epic proportions is going on over the M3 motorway being built nearby. A lot of people (even Seamus Heaney) are angry about the road going so "close" to the hill, saying it'll desecrate a sacred site. I remember our friend Claire, who heads the World Archaeological Conference, telling us about trying to keep the peace about the issue at this year's conference in Ireland... tricky. Anyhow, John told us in no uncertain terms that he believes these people are "a bunch of crazies", and that the road works don't go anywhere near the hill. On that last point, I'm inclined to agree with him. They're a long way away from anything on the hill, and lots of residences are built closer...


Once we got up the hill and parked, John led us into this tiny little stone building, which houses a second-hand bookshop run by a man named Michael Slavin. John had been referring all morning to taking us to see an "audiovisual presentation with a difference", and each time with an amused little smirk. I had imagined we'd be shown something produced by John's "crazies".

Instead, we were greeted inside the bookshop by Michael with his old slide projector, propped up on a pile of the thicker books, who proceeded to give us a illustrated potted history of Tara and some of its myths. He also sang us an old folk song about the hill. It was a fantastic introduction to the site, from a man who when Googled turns out to be a respected historian... as well as a retired show-jumping commentator, so he can spin a story very well. Each time he talked about the stone "of destiny", his voice dropped about two octaves on the last words.

Then it was out onto the hill in the wind and cold. You have to walk through an old churchyard before getting out onto the hill, and in doing so you pass a statue of St Patrick. I couldn't help but think he looked a little lost and sulky, standing alone on the outskirts of a place so heavily associated with paganism. Poor St Pat. He looked cold, too.

We paid our respects to the ancient Sheela Na Gig carving in the churchyard, then John sent us out through a little gate and onto the hillside (he didn't want to get his shoes muddy, so he went back to talk to Michael in the bookshop). The site is littered with ancient monuments, including the mound of the savages, the site of the artefacts which Pip and I had been looking at in the archaeology museum the day before. There were double-circle mounds, the remains of a hill fort, and the "dining hall" (which was probably actually something like a ceremonial avenue, but it's another great story). The stone of destiny failed to roar to declare any of us king of Ireland, and the sheep took little interest in the latest batch of tourists to trample over their field.

We also stopped at the holy well, further down the hill. A lot of people have tied coloured ribbon on the bars of the grate that covers the waterhole, I suppose as "offerings". Someone had even tied a pair of pink shoelaces on. Alas, it was too dark to show you any unblurry photos.

Back to the bus we went as dusk fell, with a brief stop in the "fairy shoppe" to buy postcards. On the trip home I was left wishing again that I knew more about Irish history; the day had been absolutely fascinating, a complicated mix of history and mythology. I hadn't expected the bus tour to be as wonderful as it was; John had really opened up by the end, after realising that he had a bus full of people who were interested in what he was saying, not just in "photographing the sights". To think the tour had been our last resort!

The bus trip back to Dublin left me woozy with motion sickness, so by the time we got back mum had to steer me down the road again to our hotel. I had a splitting headache, so I went straight to bed while the rest of my family gallantly ventred out again to find a laundromat. I owe them bigtime for that...