Newgrange Tours by Mary Gibbons

21/12/2023

Good morning from Newgrange, it’s dark, damp and very windy here this morning but we’re waiting on a miracle!

The livestream of the event can be seen using the link in the comments.

Pictured is Dr. Frank Prendergast watching the midwinter dawn light up the chamber of Newgrange, with the beam of light projected from the special aperture above the door. This structure is known as the ‘roof box’. The base of the opening is above your head as you enter, however, due to the upwards slope of the passage, the light strikes the floor as it reaches the chamber. This must be intentional, as the roof box and floor of the chamber are almost exactly level due to this upwards slope.

Frank has been involved in a project to scientifically study the phenomenon, alongside the National Monuments Service and Office of Public Works. The study took place while the chamber was closed in 2020 and 2021, with the National Monuments Service photographer, John Lalor, capturing the most spectacular photographs yet of the light spectacle. The first preliminary article based on this study was published in Archaeology Ireland.

Enjoy the solstice wherever you are!

21/12/2023

The end to a perfect day. The setting sun enters the chamber at Dowth ☀Clare T

OPW - Office of Public Works Heritage Ireland Monuments Service - Archaeology

20/12/2023

Winter Solstice

The earliest people on Earth knew that the sun’s path across the sky, the length of daylight, and the location of the sunrise and sunset all shifted in a regular way throughout the year. They built monuments such as Newgrange in Ireland, Stonehenge in England – or, for example, at Machu Picchu in Peru – to follow the sun’s yearly progress.

People gather at Newgrange for winter solstice dawn on each of the mornings from December 18th to December 23rd inclusive. Sunrise is at 8.58am. All access to the chamber is decided by lottery. However, everyone else is welcome to stand on the outside of the monument.

Dowth is another monument in the same Brú na Bóinne complex of Megalithic monuments and World Heritage Site. It is aligned with the setting sun on the Winter Solstice.

The light of the low sun moves along the left side of the passage, then into the circular chamber, where three stones are lit up by the sun. The convex central stone reflects the sunlight in to a dark recess, lighting up the decorated stones there. The rays then recede slowly along the right side of the passage and after about two hours the sun withdraws from Dowth South.

20/12/2023

in 1891 – Annie Moore departs Queenstown (now Cobh, Co Cork), becoming the first immigrant to pass through Ellis Island.

Annie Moore stood in line with her two younger brothers, Philip and Anthony. They were waiting to board the SS Nevada, a ship that would take them from Ireland to New York.

Even though she was sad, she was also excited about seeing her parents again. They had gone to America two years earlier with her older brother. Her parents had jobs in New York. They did not like the big city, but they had an apartment and enough money for food and clothing. Life was better than it had been in Ireland.

Read more 🔗 https://stairnaheireann.net/?p=176630

19/12/2023

17/12/2023

Mark your diary!!!

Tune in on December 21st at 8:40 UTC for the return of the LIVE STREAM of the winter solstice from Newgrange!

Bookmark 🔗https://cutt.ly/6wSzowi8


National Monuments Service - Archaeology Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage Irish Foreign Ministry merrionstreet.ie RTÉ News Virgin Media Ireland TG4 Discover Boyne Valley Fáilte Ireland Sky News BBC News BBC News NI Fox News CNN Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications Department of Rural and Community Development National Museum of Ireland Brú na Bóinne - Newgrange and Knowth Heritage Ireland UCD School of Archaeology Archaeology News - Today Archaeology Ireland

17/12/2023

11/12/2023

07/12/2023

There are two basin stones in the right hand recess of the chamber at Newgrange. The upper one is exquisitely carved from Mourne granite. the lower one is too big to have been brought inside after the monument was built so the chamber must have been built around it. The basins held the remains of the dead.
📷 Jimmy