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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
50September/October 2015
T
HE descendants of the Tuatha
Dé Danaan who constructed
the temples along the Boyne
Valley in BC left a legacy
of architecture with calendars
in stone, solar and lunar maps; and triple
spirals bearing witness to their spiritual,
scientific and astrological culture. The
temples are older than Stonehenge, the
Pyramid of Giza and for that matter
Homer’s ‘Iliad’ whose source was the
Siege of Troy of around BC.
In Irish mythology, Dagda named the
Boyne after his wife Boann who was
Goddess of the river known in ancient
Gaelic as Bóinn.
Apart from Enda Kenny, visitors wish-
ing to visit Newgrange and Knowth
should note that this is only possible by
joining formal tours which leave from
the Brú na Bóinne visitor centre which is
located on the south bank of the river,
close to the village of Donore.
It is possible to view the mound at
Dowth by going directly to the site but it
should be noted that there is no public
access to the tombs themselves.
Brú na Bóinne urgently needs to over-
haul and upgrade its access for visitors.
Daily, there are two buses leaving Dublin
at a.m. and p.m. The X leaves
from Custom House Quay to Drogheda
where you change to the . The later
bus is a bigger challenge with a wait of
minutes in Drogheda. You cannot
expect to arrive at the centre until .
at which time it will be nigh impossible
to fit into the schedule in the May-Sep-
tember season, and expect to bus it back
to Custom House Quay. Coach tours from
Dublin are € upwards. Car owners
and those on tour buses still encounter
problems because of the archaic access
policy to the sites. Dowth is not open to
visitors. Its carvings include ‘The Stone
of the Seven Suns’. The Drogheda Con-
servative (July th, ) mentioned the
explosives used by the Royal Irish Acad-
emy’s ‘excavation’, a plundering
expedition causing a huge crater during
its work at Dowth in the nineteenth cen-
tury, leaving the “beautiful tumulus
literally torn to pieces. Its stones bar-
rowed out as if it were to facilitate the
dissoluting propensities of road
contractors”.
Knowth is currently open to the public
but like Newgrange fraught in terms of
CULTURE Newgrange
the revamped auditorium
One of the greatest world
megalithic complexes is ill-
served by its visitor centres,
tired technology and poor
accessibility.
By Kevin Kiely
Boyne Valley
Chamber of Horrors
September/October 2015 51
actual access.
The summer schedule accommodates
groups of visitors up to . pm. Indi-
viduals and families are lower in the
pecking order. The policy is quite stolid:
“there can be no guarantee that every-
one will have access to the sites”
according to the official leaflet. Pre-
booking is only possible through fax or
the postal system, addressee: ‘Reserva-
tions’. The latter method is fittingly but
frustratingly prehistoric. Stonehenge,
for example, has an IT system to opti-
mise the visitor’s experience.
Not so at ‘Brú na Bóinne’ whose visi-
tors centre which opened in uses a
sticker system and an internal shuttle-
bus service to the sites – a ten to fifteen
minute journey away. It already offends
that the centre (if necessary at all) is
remote in its location. It is ‘disastrously’
situated south of the river whereas New-
grange is across the Boyne, beautifully
built on a curve of the river. There is a
hut on-site within metres of Newgrange
where the staff corral the next group of
visitors in the slow and muddled process
of access while the preceding group has
been shuttled ignominiously in and out.
The vaunted ‘experience’ of New-
grange based on the quasi-museum at
the centre cannot but fail to deliver. The
exhibition meets only minimum stand-
ards, replete with predictable plastic
skeletons and tiring mannequins
wearing primitive raggy costumes. The
miniature model of the prehistoric com-
munity is appropriate for children but
has little or no appeal to adults. The big-
gest boast is the replica of Newgrange
itself which is a filleted version of the
passageway and demonstrably inferior
to the original, in every imaginable way.
The actual passageway is metres
long, slopes upwards to meet the level of
the light box under which it
is possible to walk,
giving the effect of a
prehistoric fanlight
window on enter-
ing the temple.
The problem
with the replica is
not just the pho-
neyness of the
materials used but
the crucial failure
of scale.
The centre with
contemporary visuals,
artefacts and laminated
murals cumulatively does not register
anything like the impact of Newgrange
or Knowth. The centre offers (as conso-
lation?) a twenty-minute DVD of the
experience costing €. It would be easy
to leave this experience feeling short-
changed. Depression would not be
unreasonable as one headed for the fleet-
ing bus.
Decidedly, there is a school-tour
atmosphere about this experience, from
stickered visitors waiting for their shut-
tle bus to finally getting on site.
It has slavishly pursued the kitsch
motif of circularity in design. Spirals
almost jump out at you everywhere, like
attenuated hypnosis. One notorious
chunk of glass in the circular glazed
walls has an embedded spiral on a circu-
lar window. The restaurant is good but
pricey, taking advantage of affluent and
hungry quasi-hostages on the long wait
to see the temples. Soft drinks, crisps
and such are available but not at Lidl
prices. The car park has had thefts from
parked cars. Walkways outdoors are
paved and fenced, as well as hedged off.
There is no great incentive to go out and
ramble as your shuttle bus is the central
focus. There is a sense of being confined
to barracks in the ever circular interiors
of the centre.
Outdoors at last, the
centre is set in lush pas-
toral landscape, low on
the horizon. You cross
a substantial foot-
bridge and traverse
the hemmed-in path-
ways until reaching
the shuttle park
which is a small cir-
cular yard. The
shuttles are slightly
larger than mini-buses,
taking about - per-
sons at a time. On alighting
from the shuttle you have to wait for the
previous group to exit the site. You wait
in a corralled area for your guide near
the checkpoint hut. Released into the
field before Newgrange there are further
delays as the guide mechanically
‘explains’ the passage tomb. Mystical
this is not.
The group is split up and access
Newgrange’s
exhibition
meets only
minimum
standards,
replete with
predictable
plastic
skeletons
and tiring
mannequins
“
Kevin Kiely
CULTURE
DIATRIBE
sterilised exterior, Newgrange cratered Dowth
depressing Brú na Boinne
Visitor Centre
52September/October 2015
CULTURE Newgrange
limited by the numbers allowed inside.
Within the temple and its chamber
during the visit the guide provides fur-
ther remarks. The time spent inside the
temple is around fifteen minutes (no
photos allowed). You can circle the
temple and see the kerb stones before
returning to the shuttle bus, back to the
centre.
In the era of smartphones, travel apps
and ubiquitous IT the centre really
should upgrade to an online timeslot
system. Faxes, letters with stamps and
return replies are just not on. Ask a
child.
The quarter of a
million visitors
who make the trek
to ‘Brú na Bóinne’
annually deserve a
better system of
access without
resorting to a Gov-
ernment tribunal
or a referendum on
the matter. Many
visitors enlist in
the lottery for the
experience of the
Winter Solstice in
the chamber at
Newgrange,
though the best
places always seem to have been pre-ap-
propriated by the worst
government-connected personages.
In contrast, Fourknocks, ten miles
south east of Newgrange near the village
of Naul, is raffishly accessible on receipt
of a € deposit for use of the key. No
stickers, no shuttle bus, no tour guide,
no leaflet. You are free to experience it
beyond OPW strictures. It is a remarka-
ble temple whose chamber is twice the
size of the one in Newgrange and linked
to the prehistoric rites, rituals and cer-
emonies practised along the Boyne.
Individually and collectively, each site
is a religious temple both necropolis and
heliopolis as well as sacred place of
ancestor worship and sun worship as
attested to by the copious examples of
triple spirals and other symbols carved
into the rocks and standing stones.
You don’t have to be an archaeologist
to comprehend that these spirals refer to
the rituals, with especial focus on the
sun and the dead, based on the evidence
of burial artefacts found at these
locations.
Knowth by name is connected with
the Goddess of the Earth, Cnogba, and
therefore synonymous with the womb
and the tomb. Dowth has definitive links
of the same nature since ‘Dubhbadh’
meant darkness in ancient Gaelic. The
Solstice alignments that connect with
the temples register the establishment
by the ancients of their absolute
purpose.
The inner chamber at Fourknocks is
the largest in the mystical Boyne Valley
Experience.
The system needs a vastly simpler
Brú na Bóinne
The archaeological landscape within Brú na Bóinne is dominated by the three well-known large
passage tombs, Knowth, Newgrange and Dowth, built some 5,000 years ago in the Neolithic or
Late Stone Age. An additional ninety monuments have been recorded in the area giving rise to one
of the most significant archaeological complexes in scale and density of monuments and the
material evidence that accompanies them. The Brú na Bóinne tombs, in particular Knowth, contain
the largest assemblage of megalithic art in Western Europe. Knowth’s extraordinary collection of
megalithic art was done on site. Sometimes it stops at ground level suggesting the stones had
already been erected before the art was applied.
The natural heritage of Brú na Bóinne is also of importance and it encompasses several Natural
Heritage Areas. The Boyne River Islands are one of the country’s few examples of alluvial wet
woodland which is a priority habitat under the EU Habitats Directive.
Brú na Bóinne was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in December 1993 in recognition of its
outstanding universal value. The scale of passage tomb construction, the important concentration
of megalithic art as well as the range of sites and the long continuity of activity were cited as
reasons for the site’s inscription.
The construction of the passage tomb cemetery in Brú na Bóinne began some time around 3300
BC and by this time, the area had developed into an open farmed landscape with evidence for
domestic houses and occupation scattered throughout. The building of at least 40 passage tombs
displaying a sophisticated knowledge of architecture, engineering, astronomy and artistic
endeavour indicates a highly organised and settled society where rituals and ceremonies
surrounding the treatment of the dead and contact with the ancestors, required highly complex
and permanent manifestation.
When the tombs fell into disuse, possibly around 2900 BC, the areas surrounding them
continued to be the focus of ceremonies, ritual and habitation right through to the Early Bronze
Age period (c.2200 BC). Large earthen embanked circles, pit circles and pit and wooden post
circles (all of which have been described as ‘henges’) were constructed. Throughout the Iron Age
(c.500 BC – AD 400) there is evidence of sporadic activity, including burials close to the main
mound at Knowth and on the river terrace at Rosnaree. Late Iron Age / Roman items, including
coins and jewellery were deposited in the vicinity of Newgrange as votive offerings.
The introduction of Christianity in the early fifth century brought renewed activity to Brú na
Bóinne. After its initial use, Newgrange was sealed for several millennia, although it remained
storied in Irish mythology and folklore. The entrance to Newgrange was rediscovered by
landowner, Charles Campbell’s labourers in 1699.
Professor Michael J O’Kelly excavated and restored Newgrange from 1962 to 1975 and many now
regard it as Ireland’s national monument. O’Kelly discovered that the builders of Newgrange
deliberately oriented the passage so that each year around the winter solstice, the rays of the
rising sun would shine through a special aperture he called a roofbox to illuminate the chamber. As
part of a ‘restoration process’ at Newgrange in the late 1970s white quartzite stones and cobbles
were fixed into a ludicrously sterilising near-vertical steel-reinforced concrete wall surrounding
the entrance of the mound. This restoration is controversial among the archaeological community.
Critics of the wall point out that the technology did not exist when the mound was created to fix
a retaining wall at this angle. •
organisational structure for easy access. If this requires the
existing centre to be used for other purposes, why not. Knowth
and Newgrange is a downward spiral of obvious disappoint-
ment for those who arrive and cannot be fitted into the day’s
schedule.
The centre critically examined could well find a far better
use.
It will not take Einstein’s theory of Accessibility to adopt a
more efficient and less supervised access policy for visitors,
using far less infrastructure.
Besides, the centre was not built to last like the temples of
the Boyne dating from 5,000 years ago. Get rid of it. •
Critics of
Newgrange’s
wall point
out that the
technology did
not exist when
the mound was
created to fix a
retaining wall
at this angle
“
September/October 2015 53
