Ireland Day 1: Tombs and Towers

So, where did I leave off? Oh yes--we had just left the Dublin airport. It was something like 9am in Ireland (3am IL time), so the day was just starting even though to our bodies, it felt like we should be tucked peacefully into bed. I'd planned a full day of sight-seeing for that first day, which was probably a good idea in terms of forcing us to stay awake and get used to the time change. But in terms of getting the most enjoyment possible out of the sights, well, it wasn't the best plan. Nevertheless, we blinked our sleepy eyes at the sunshine and set out on the LEFT side of the road.

We headed north towards Newgrange. (A little note about geography here. The Dublin airport is actually north of Dublin, so we never even entered the city thus far--we planned it that way on purpose, because we wanted to avoid driving in Dublin in general and also wanted to start out our first day on less stressful, less populated roads. Here's a little map so people can get their bearings. The green tent represents Newgrange, and the blue flag is Trim, which I'll talk about soon.)

It was a little tricky finding the visitor's center once we got off the freeway--our first small taste of the windy little roads with less than stellar signage (although the signs around here were actually much better than they were later on in other places...) It wasn't too bad, though, and the drive was less than an hour in all.

I wanted to hit Newgrange first because it is very popular and tickets are often sold out by the afternoon. What is Newgrange, you ask? A huge ancient burial mound 1,000 years older than the Egyptian pyramids (built about 3,000 B.C.) There are many of these "passage tombs" in Ireland. They were built by assembling HUGE rocks into a long passage way (or set of passageways) leading to a cruciform chamber in the middle, then piling up massive amounts of dirt on top to build an earthen hill with a narrow passageway leading to the center, where they would bury human remains.

The special thing about the passageways is that they are aligned just at the right angle so that on the winter solstice (or summer equinox at some sites), the sunlight will penetrate all the way down the passage and light up the tombs in the center for 17 minutes. (Which, as my mother-in-law pointed out, sounds very Indiana Jones-esque, don't you think?)



At Newgrange, they let you walk all the way down the passageway in small groups, and then they recreate the solstice effect with electric lights to show you what it's like.

We also saw another giant burial mound called Knowth, which is very nearby. This one is actually bigger and older, but you can't go inside the passage. Knowth has a huge amount of prehistoric stone carving art on the outside of it, though--much more than at Newgrange, which was pretty impressive.

It also has 18 smaller satellite mounds all around it, and a circle of post-holes where they had a wooden stonehenge-like sun calendar thing (archaeologists found the post holes, and they've put new wood in them to show what it would have looked like.)

It was all extremely impressive--5,000 years old! The visitor's center was very interesting too, although you can see my exceeding I-just-got-off-an-overseas-plane-flight frumpiness in the picture of me standing by the display. And I don't know why the picture makes it look like there are white stripes on the sides of my jeans...

















After we were done at the burial mounds, we drove inland toward a town called Trim. The castle at Trim is very impressive--in fact, it's where they filmed Braveheart, apparently. (I haven't seen it, but that's what everyone said.) It is has not been "restored" like some other castles, but it is in pretty good shape. Not bad considering it is almost 1,000 years old (I think it dates from 1200 or so).

We had an excellent tour guide who took us around and showed us everything. Kevin really enjoyed it especially, because this castle was a true defensive castle, built with war in mind. He finds that more interesting than the other "floofy" castles we have visited that are really more like ornate palaces.

Anyways, it was very cool to see. We even got a distant view of the Hill of Tara from the tower (which is where the Irish high kings ruled before the Normans took over). In the shot of the countryside, you can see the small hill with a few trees on it--see it?

We ALSO saw a wedding party at the castle, which was kind of fun. I think they were just taking pictures, not actually having the wedding there, however.

We stayed the night at a little bed and breakfast in Trim, which we checked into after seeing the castle. We had a short nap, and then went to dinner. It was raining, so we just ducked into a close place that seemed nice. It *was* nice, but pretty darn pricey too. But I really enjoyed my duck! Kevin ordered fajitas, which was a very funny experience. Let's just say that Irish fajitas aren't quite what we are used to. As we left the restaurant, there was a giant double rainbow over the castle. I took that to be a good omen that we would have a fantastic trip!