The Road Goes Ever On

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Bru na Boinne

Knowth, and a couple of its satellites

Knowth kerb stone, one of 127

Knowth's eastern passage way, longest of any megalithic structure

Newgrange's entry stone

Newgrange; the facade is reconstructed original

The "Stone of Destiny" at Tara; found nearby, erected in 1928

All the previous megalithic stuff, however interesting (to us), was mere prelude. Saturday we toured Bru na Boinne, the megalithic super-complex on the River Boyne in County Meath...Newgrange and Knowth, and later, Tara Hill.

Newgrange is a massive solar site, like Stonehenge in England, but very, very large, and fully mounded. It has a few carved stones, like Gavrinis in Morbihan, which has lots, but is in its size an architectural wonder, especially for its 5000-6000 year age. The corbaled vaulting in the central chamber is incredible. 200,000 tons of stone comprise the structure. Knowth is a more recent discovery, larger than Newgrange, with an east/west orientation, and has the longest interior passage way of any known tumulus. Were that not enough, at least half its giant kerb stones, 127 of them, are carved, although not as delicately as Gavrinis. A third tumulus, Dowth, midway in size between Newgrange and Knowth, is still not open to the public. All three are within a few km of each other, as are scores of lesser tumuli. Knowth is surrounded by such satellite tumuli.

The Office of Public Works visitor center, museum, displays, and tours were superb. Our only complaint was that not enough time was allowed for Knowth, where the carved stones are all visible and want attention. At Newgrange, you simply enter the passage with a guide, proceed to the central chamber, and are given a 60 watt light bulb demonstration of what winter solstice looks like inside, through the 5,000-year-old light-box. But it's still pretty moving. After a couple weeks of touring here, I am deeply impressed by Ireland's care for these monuments, display and interpretation of them, and making them a central feature of tourism here. Bravo!

Tara Hill is the site of an iron-age fort, that of the Irish kings of yore. Only the mounds and ditch-work remain, but the site's command of the countryside is impressive.

All in all, an incredible day.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

A Day in the North: Giant's Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, and beyond

The giant, Finn MacCool (how cool a name is that?), built

the causeway to Scotland, to do battle with a giant there,

or possibly to toss the Ring into Mt. Doom...

Fortunately, he built using these six-sided basaltic colums

Basaltic columns, up-close

Bushmills and the Causeway looked like Sturgis with all the

bike folk gathering for a big European road race

But nary a Harley in sight

Vicki crossing the rope-bridge to the sea

stack at Carrick-a-Rede

The rope bridge

Coolest green tunnel so far, country road 5 km or so west of

Bushmills

We ended up camping at Rush, on Dublin Bay, in a hurricane;

note Martello tower in distance

Old Bushmill's

Drinking is my sole spiritual experience these days, but I am at least ecumenical in my drinking. And so we had to visit the Old Bushmill's Distillery while in Bushmill. The campground was practically adjacent to the distillery. (Bushmill's is Protestant. the others, Catholic). Many of you will be wondering what has been my assessment of the four great Irish whiskeys, Jameson's, Paddy's, Power's, and Bushmill's. I have indeed sampled them all, some more than others. I still favor Jameson's and Bushmill's, as before coming to Ireland. But I also sampled a boutique whiskey, Michael Collins, in Dublin, and it was by far my favorite. In any case, I have to plead insufficient sampling so far.

Ireland's oldest (well, Northern Ireland's oldest), chartered in 1608

The sweet aroma of the mash was, well, intoxicating

Great spirituality

Comparable to Jameson's, gift shop-wise

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Drumcliffe

Drumcliff Church, north of Sligo

High and very old cross

Old stone in church narthex

Church interior

Church organ

Yeats' and George's graves

Carremor Tombs and Drumcliffe

Grand tomb at Carramor; a huge mound with inner courtyard and chambers

Dolmen within the tomb

Circle with dolmen, a few hundred feet away

More stone circles in the complex

We spent most of the morning querying and researching German customs regulations about receiving the Grey Wanderer in Bremerhaven. There are always complications, and our shipper has not served us well in alerting us to costs and other matters. More on all this as it develops.

After lunch we began our drive to Northern Ireland, through Sligo, Donegal, Derry, and beyond to Bushmill, where we are presently camped. It rained throughout the day but let up this evening just long enough for us to pitch our trusty and so far water-proof tent.

Our major stop of the day was at the Carramore Tombs just west of Sligo. This is another enormous megalithic complex...dozens of passage graves, dolmens, stone circles and the rest. Here, however, they are almost unimaginably old, going well past 6,000 years.

Then just north of Sligo, we stopped at Drumcliffe, the site of Yeats' grave, and itself a site of considerable interest, the monastery dating back to 574. The little church was a model of simplicity and beauty.

Ceide Fields and Dunbriste

A totally duded-up Cooper S right there on the coast road; nobody home

6,000 year old stone wall at Ceide Fields

Downpatrick Head and the sea stack, from Ceide Fields

The blow hole on Downpatrick Head, 100 meters or so from the cliff edge, enormous...

The sea stack, Dunbriste; it separated from the Head in 1393; two families were isolated, later rescued

After lunch, we drove on to Ballycastle, just beyond it, to the Ceide Fields. In the last couple decades, archaeologists have discovered, surveyed, and partly excavated a neolithic system of fields encompassing many hundreds of acres—all bounded by stone fences, structures—that date back to the 4th millennium BC, 6,000 years. It is the largest neolithic site yet discovered, anywhere. Relatively little has been excavated, but there is a good modern museum and brief guided tours. The Ceide Fields lie beneath an enormous blanket peat bog, 1-2 meters deep generally, and thus their preservation. (No decomposition in bogs, where there is little oxygen.) Ireland was heavily forested in neolithic times, pine, hazel and elm. Clearing the forests made herding and grain-growing possible, but it eventually led to super-saturated ground that becomes the bog.

The Ceide Fields run right down to the cliffs and the sea, and not far from them is one of County Mayo's most famous sights, Downpatrick Head, and the sea stack there, Dunbriste. Finding and walking out to Dunbriste, past the enormous blowhole in the middle of the cliffs, was another incredible treat and a fine way to end the day. We camped, under gathering rain clouds, at Ballina.

Don't Pass Up the Mayo

Our negotiations with shippers, brokers, agents, bankers, customs officials, and others seemingly at an end (thank you, Rebecca), we took the day to explore the Hamburg centrum, mostly on foot. (See Vicki's blog for descriptions of the interesting circumstances regarding the shipping of the Grey Wanderer). It is a very old city, capital of the Hanseatic League before there was a Germany; but little of the really old remains. It is nonetheless an attractive city, with much to see and explore. Good beer, Bitburger, is 49 cents a half-liter bottle. FWIW. A bottle of Riesling was a buck, I mean, Euro. Somehow I resisted visiting the U-boat museum. Our explorations included the railway station ("Ich gehe zum Bahnhof"--some of my two years of German is coming back, slowly, in iotas..."the awful German language"), where we purchased tickets for tomorrow's ride to the port of Bremerhaven. Hopefully, we'll pick up the Grey Wanderer there on Friday. If not, we'll be at a hostel in Bremerhaven until we do....

The Turlough Round Tower

Fitzgerald Manor House, now part of the National Folk Museum

A Lyrachord, only one ever made, part piano, part harpsichord

Hide boat at National Folk Museum

Exhibit, National Folk Museum

Ascent of the Reek

Croach Parick, about 2,500 feet; this is the mountain on which the saint did Lent, 441AD, also from which he expelled the serpents and other unsavory things, etc.