From Dublin to Neolithic Ireland

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If you had asked me a month before, “Where will you be in a month?” the answer would have been something like “Malawi” or “Tanzania”. Ireland was not a place I was even considering, yet there I was walking off of the plane in Dublin, Ireland. The decision to alter my loosely formed African itinerary from an overland journey all the way to Cairo, to a quick jaunt through Europe was somewhat of a spur of the moment decision. I had been sitting in an internet café in Swakopmund, Namibia, on the Skeleton Coast, looking at a recent e-mail from my mom, which detailed her upcoming vacation to Ireland. I had been on the computer trying to find a way to get through Sudan to Egypt. The word on the street was that people with a US passport were not being permitted to cross into Sudan from Ethiopia and everything I read on the internet confirmed that - I would have had to fly into the capitol of Khartoum and proceed from there, which would have left an unsightly gap in the red line on my hand-drawn map that signified my route along the surface of the Earth. I briefly considered a ferry route from Eritrea to Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia, and on to Egypt, but the hassles of getting a Saudi transit visa didn’t sound all that appealing. I was truly loving Southern Africa, but my friend Allan had filled my head with amazing stories of the Middle East while we drove around South Africa and I was anxious to get up there to explore a bit - I also wanted to be home for the holidays, which meant that I needed to get up to the Middle East quickly if I wanted to spend any time there. I decided that I would scrap my overland trip until a time in the future when I would be able to do it completely over land. My first plan had me flying straight up to Egypt, however the plane ticket was obscenely expensive and I wasn’t too keen on seeing what the Sahara was like in July, so I did some more thinking. I discovered that I could fly to London and on to Istanbul for less money than I could fly straight to Egypt for and it was an easy side trip to Ireland from London. It was then that I decided to meet my parents on the Emerald Isle and I purchased the plane tickets - I also purchased a ticket back home from Amman, Jordan, thus solidifying the amount of time I had left to travel.

I knew virtually nothing about Ireland, yet the island nation had a special place in my heart. Everything I knew about the Emerald Isle came from its well known folk tales and legends or its colorful pub songs - After all, everyone knows the grand stories of leprechauns and pots of gold at the end of the rainbow. It was really shameful that I knew so little about a land that played such a huge part in the building of America. As luck would have it the hostel I stayed at in Livingstone, Zambia was filled with Irish travelers. When they found out that I was headed up to Ireland they made sure that I knew all of the best places to go - After over a week of traveling with them, I was much better acquainted with their homeland. One thing I knew for certain was that I had never met someone from Ireland that I didn’t like immensely and some of the most colorful and friendly people I had met on the road were from there - Needless to say I was excited as I stepped out of the airport in Dublin.

It was early morning on July, 28, my thirty-third birthday, and I had dinner plans with my parents later that evening, but they were driving in from Galway and were not due to arrive for several more hours. Though I had gotten very little sleep the night before, I decided it was time to do some sightseeing. I took a bus from the airport to the city center and then I found my hostel, which was well located facing the River Liffey, just off of O’Connell Street. I dropped my bags off in the luggage room and then I set off to explore the city. My first priority was breakfast, so I found a small café near the hostel and I sat down to my first meal in Ireland. After breakfast I picked a direction and started walking. The circuitous path I followed took me first along the north bank of the river until I reached the Ha’Penny Bridge and then I headed north for a while. The streets were noticeably calmer than the busy thoroughfares in London, so I set my own pace and took in the city’s lovely old buildings. I eventually made my way back to O’Connell St. and then headed south. I had just walked past the giant silver spire, which dominated the skyline around the O’Connell St. area, and I was admiring the Greek revival post office building, which had played a big part in the Easter Rising, when a local man came up and grabbed my arm. He started chastising me for looking and acting like a tourist - I suppose the camera, which was hidden away in my bag, and my interest in the city’s sights gave me away, or could it have been my long hair and the slightly grungy, two-day old outfit I was wearing? Regardless, I was immediately on guard. I broke the man’s grip on my arm and started walking away, but he was persistent and he came back with a, “I’m just trying to help you out.” “I don’t want you to be targeted by one of the city’s many criminals.” He then grabbed my arm again and said, “I am a police officer, so I know how dangerous it is for you here.” It was a fairly humorous situation really, because I was surrounded by people wearing bright t-shirts and shorts, all of them with cameras in their hands and vacant, sight-seeing stares pointed in all directions. If anything, he looked out of place with his normal cloths. The odor on his breath told me right away that he had been spending a bit too much time in the pubs and I began to suspect that his touchy feely approach to ‘helping’ me was more of a search for my wallet than a sincere concern for my safety, so I said, somewhat forcibly, “Thank you, but I will be OK!” and then I broke his grip again and walked away - I suppose I could have saved him some time by wearing a sign that said ‘I don’t have a wallet, so don’t bother looking for it.’ I left the man mumbling curses in the street and I headed back towards the river and the lovely statue of O’Connell that dominated the north intersection at the bridge.

In the distance, down the Liffey, I could see a familiar sight and I had to get a closer look. After about ten minutes of walking I came to a large tall ship called the Belem that was tied up to the quay. The Belem was a French ship that was in town visiting and, as luck would have it, it was open for tours. The beautiful ship was very similar to the bark Europa in dimensions and rigging and it was over one hundred years old, so it was an exciting walk down memory lane. I tried to talk to the crew about how often the ship sailed and if they took on passengers, but my French is not so good and that was all that they spoke. I stared up into the rigging and went over the names of each rope and each sail - Surprisingly, I had not forgotten much in the four months that had passed since I said farewell to the Europa. I didn’t want to leave, but my parents were due to arrive soon and I had a long walk to get to their side of town. I said goodbye to the amazing ship and I walked away, longing to be looking out across the ocean from my perch on the royal yard again - I can’t wait until the next time I cross an ocean under a billowing canopy of sails!

My parents were staying at the fancy Shelbourne Hotel on Saint Stephen’s Green. I walked past the lovely buildings of Trinity College and the Bank of Ireland and then, after a quick detour through the Temple Bar area, found myself at the lovely green park. I knew that their hotel was at the north-east corner of the park so I walked straight there, passing a lovely ivy covered building along the way. I revolved through the door and walked through the fancy lobby area to the hotel desk. I asked the lady at the counter if my parents had arrived and she smiled and said that they had not. Instead of sitting around in the lobby, I decided to take a quick walk through the park, so I went back outside and walked across the street. I entered Saint Stephen’s Green through a seemingly hidden opening in a large stone, wall-like sculpture on the corner nearest the hotel. The area on the other side was bathing in shade from the ancient trees that lined the path. I walked for a while beneath the trees and then I came to an old stone bridge that crossed over a small pond to a large, garden-like opening. I stood on the arch of the bridge for some time watching the ducks swim by and the children run after them - It was a hectic, but strangely peaceful scene. The crowd of children finally forced the ducks to flee into hiding and I decided to move on. The large open area on the other side of the bridge was full of life. I took a seat on one of the round water basins and watched the people go by. Eventually the rain that had been threatening all day sent most of the people running for cover and I decided to continue exploring the small park. The rain poured down for a while as I strolled along the leafy paths, but I didn’t mind because it added a pleasant atmosphere to the experience. I eventually made my way back to the bridge where the ducks had emerged from their hiding places and were enjoying a bit of peace and quiet. I watched the pleasant scene in the now deserted park for a while and then I headed back to the hotel. Oddly enough I was not all that wet when I got there, so I decided to take a seat in a plush chair in the lobby and wait for my parents to arrive.

It seemed like I had been sitting there for hours. I watched as face after unfamiliar face passed through the lobby and finally, after about an hour of waiting, I spotted a face I knew well as a man stepped out of a car that had just pulled up to the curb - It was my stepfather Ken. I rushed out and greeted him and then helped my mom out of the car. I had been away from home for nearly six months and I had only talked with them a few times since I left, so it was an exciting reunion. I helped them get everything they needed out of the car and then we walked through the lobby, checked in and headed up to their room. We spent about an hour sitting there getting reacquainted and then we headed down to the hotel restaurant for a nice birthday dinner. We talked a bit about their journey across from Shannon and the goings on at home and then I filled them in on the more interesting parts of my African journey - They then chastised me a bit about being so far behind on my blogs. We talked for hours about everything from our itinerary in Ireland to my mom’s displeasure with my choice to visit the Middle East and then I got a surprise when they informed me that my Norwegian family, Cato and Mona, were due to arrive that same evening - I had talked with them a few times and they even visited my parents home in Georgia while I was in Antarctica, but I had never met them. I was excited with the news.

After dinner we set off to find the hotel that Cato and Mona were staying in and there we found out that they would not be in until later. We decided to explore a few of the famous pubs of Dublin, but, alas, Saturday night was not the best night to do so. We retreated from the rowdy, standing-room-only crowds and headed back to the Shelbourne where we talked for a while longer. It was getting late and I was exhausted, so I decided to call it an evening and I said goodnight and caught a cab back to my hostel and a much needed night’s sleep. Apparently Cato and Mona showed up fairly late, but managed to talk my parents into going out for a wonderful night of music and merriment in one of the pubs around the corner - My mom, being an excellent musician herself, even played a few songs on a borrowed guitar and I missed it all!

I was up early the following morning, which was the norm for me. I gobbled down my free breakfast and then I set off on foot to my parents’ hotel. We had a lot planned for the day, so I was surprised to find them just getting out of bed when I arrived - That was before, of course, I found out about the late night they had had. We were due to meet up with Cato and Mona shortly, so my parents got ready quickly and we headed out the door. We found Cato and Mona near their hotel in the Temple Bar area. I had already placed a face with their names, but, even had I not known what they looked like, I could not have missed Cato - He looked exactly how I imagine my grandfather looked in his younger years. It was an amazing moment for me. There were no tentative introductions or shy, labored conversations, just a few big hugs and then it felt as if I had known them all of my life. We were family; there was no doubt about it. Family has always been hugely important to me. Most of the family vacations of my childhood were spent visiting relatives all over the eastern United States. During those trips my mom would spend countless hours poring over the old courthouse records or visiting colonial cemeteries in town after town in a quest to build our family tree. She managed to connect us to presidents and kings and important settlers from the early beginnings of our nation, even, possibly, a privateer that sailed during the revolution - Our family history was really amazing, but only one line on the huge family tree had recent roots overseas. It was because of that recent history and the fact that I was extremely close to my very Scandinavian grandfather, Rolf Martin, or ‘Poppy’ as we called him, during my youth that my Scandinavian heritage has always meant a lot to me - It was great to finally meet family from there.

We had a huge list of things to see and do in the three days we had in Dublin. Cato and Mona had been to Dublin before and had already seen many of the sights that we wanted to see, so we decided to part ways for a few hours. We walked together down Grafton Street to the bronze statue of Molly Malone, which was exciting for my musically oriented mom, and then we made plans to meet at the Guinness brewery a little later in the day. We left our Norwegian family and crossed the street to Trinity College where I did something completely out of character for me - I boarded one of the many red, double-decker tourist busses with my parents. I always prefer to walk, but it was a nice break from my normal routine and a good way to cover a lot of ground quickly. The bus was actually a fairly good deal. We rode around on the open upper deck and we watched all of the lovely buildings go by. We saw Oscar Wilde’s old house and the colorful statue dedicated to him in Merrion Square, the lovely government buildings, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin Castle, Phoenix Park and countless other lovely places all while receiving some humorous commentary from the hilarious bus driver. The first place we got off of the bus was at the Guinness Brewery, which was located in a lovely old brick industrial building. I was not overly excited about the stop since I am not a beer drinker, but it was important for my parents. We were not even planning on doing the full tour, but we needed souvenirs from there - My brother back home wanted a Guinness from the brewery. We spent a long while there and then we headed outside for some more pictures. We were supposed to meet Cato and Mona there, but they were running late, or we were running early, so we didn’t find them until we were waiting for the bus again. There was one place left on the tour that we wanted to see, so we made some plans to meet at a certain pub for a late lunch and then we headed off again.

Our next stop was the magnificent Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, the largest church in Ireland. We stood outside for a while and admired the amazing stone structure, which dates from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, and then we walked inside to take in the even grander interior. As we walked into the dark interior we learned a bit about the history of the cathedral. The property that the church sits on, which was outside of the original Dublin city walls, was once the site of a holy well that Saint Patrick himself used to baptize early Irish Christians, which makes the church and surrounding park one of the oldest Christian sites on the island. Other interesting tidbits we learned: The church served as a stable for Oliver Cromwell’s military horses when he swept across the island in 1649; Also, Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels, served as the Dean of the Cathedral for many years in the early 1700s - His grave is located in the cathedral. The cathedral was restored from a state of virtual ruin in the mid 1800s with funds provided by Benjamin Guinness. We spent a long while quietly walking through the shadows beneath the beautiful, gothic, rib-vaulted ceiling. A kaleidoscope of color flowed in from the stained glass windows and pierced the mysterious shadows of the timeless stone walls and arches with patterns of blues and greens and reds. It was amazing to think about what the huge stone walls of the Cathedral have seen - In some form or another, the cathedral had seen more than seven-hundred years of vibrant history pass through its walls.

Our lunch date was rapidly approaching, so we said farewell to the ancient stone walls of St. Patrick’s and we set off on foot towards the Liffey. We climbed up the gently sloping road to Christ Church Cathedral where we paused to admire the stunning, stone structure with its graceful flying buttresses - The Cathedral found its beginnings in the early eleventh century, commissioned by the Viking King in what was then the Norse Kingdom of Dublin. We walked beneath the huge arched stone bridge that joined the Cathedral with the old Synod Hall and we headed down the hill towards the old Viking settlement of Wood Quay - Sadly, there is little remaining of the Viking settlement at Wood Quay, because the Dublin Corporation decided to build a huge concrete administrative office on the site despite huge public outcry. We made a few turns and ended up at the River Liffey and the Brazen Head - The oldest pub in Dublin, dating from 1198. Cato and Mona were waiting for us when we arrived (late) and we took a seat and ordered lunch. We sat and talked and shared our day’s explorations while we ate some delicious traditional fare and listened to some great music - I had their famous Irish stew, which was heavenly. We were eating in the open courtyard of the old building, which dated from 1688 when it served as a coaching inn. Some great music was flowing out of the actual pub, which was adjacent to the courtyard. We finished our meal and headed into the pub where we enjoyed the famous Irish folk songs and the warm pub atmosphere - I don’t like being in bars as they exist in America, but I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere in just about every pub I visited in Ireland, because they seemed to be more oriented towards music and conversation than drunken debauchery. It was standing room only in the pub, but the guitar and violin and the festive atmosphere kept us there for what seemed like hours. Eventually we left the Brazen Head and walked across the Liffey where we said farewell to Cato and Mona again and boarded the big red tourist bus. We continued along the river and then ended up back at the Trinity College bus stop we had started at.

We continued on the bus for a short while longer until we reached the stop for the Genealogical Office - Having a fairly large Irish Heritage, my mom couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try and broaden our family tree. We found the office inside the lovely old library building, which was going under some extensive restoration work. There we discovered that our family immigrated to America prior to when the government started keeping records - Excepting the slight chance that church records still exist, which would only help if we knew where in Ireland our family was from, we would have no way of finding our family there. We moved on. We walked past the National Museum, turned the corner and headed back inside the Shelbourne Hotel. It had been a full day of sightseeing and we were tired - I am used to only taking in a few sites a day, so it seemed like a whirlwind tour. We had a few hours before we were due to get back together with Cato and Mona for dinner, so we settled in and relaxed and discussed our upcoming journey around southern Ireland.

Before dinner we took a stroll through St. Stephen’s Green and exited the park at the Fusiliers’ Arch. We walked across the street and found Cato and Mona and then we set off in search of a perfect pub to spend the evening. We stopped into a few different places before we found one that had the feel we were looking for. We ordered some very basic pub food and some drinks and then we sat and waited for the music to start. While we waited we talked about several things from the happenings back at home in Georgia and in Norway to my travels. It came up that Cato and Mona would be vacationing on the island of Rhodes in a month or so. I told them that I was also planning a trip to Rhodes from Turkey in the next few months. We decided it would be fun to try and get together there for a few days. The music started up and it was great. We stayed at the pub for hours singing along with the music and having a great time. It was getting late and I had to get up very early the next morning, so I said goodnight to everyone and left them at the pub and headed back home to the hostel.

The following morning started a bit too early. I was going on a short journey by myself to one of the places that my Irish friends in Zambia told me not to miss. I grabbed my camera gear and some water and I walked down O’Connell Street to the appointed meeting point at one of the expensive hotels and I waited for my ride. I was going to a place north of Dublin called Bru’ Na Boinne. The area contains several excellent Neolithic passage graves - I would be visiting Knowth and Newgrange, two of the best known and best preserved of the passage tombs in Ireland. I met the van and paid my way and then we headed north into the Irish countryside. The first thing that I noticed after we put Dublin behind us was that everything was very green - It was finally clear to me why Ireland had the nickname ‘The Emerald Isle.’ We drove for what seemed like an hour through the lovely forests and rolling green hills of County Meath and then we pulled up to a tour bus clogged parking lot surrounded by trees. Our driver walked us to the visitor center and helped us get the tours of the two sites organized and then he told us when to be back at the van for our return to Dublin. My tour was not due to start for over an hour, so I set off to explore the excellent museum and interpretive center. I walked from exhibit to exhibit and I learned a lot about Neolithic Ireland and the civilization that grew up around the River Boyne. I learned that the passage tombs were the oldest and possibly the most important Neolithic sites in Europe. Built around 3200 BC, the tombs at Bru’ Na Boinne predate both the pyramids in Egypt and Stonehenge by nearly a thousand years (if the dates we have for those sites are accurate). The final portion of the museum was a reconstruction of the passage at Newgrange. Inside I got to see a demonstration of the amazing phenomenon that only happens during the Winter Solstice when the sun shines directly through an opening in the top of the passage and illuminates the entire interior of the tomb - Archaeologists believe that, in addition to a burial chamber, Newgrange may have acted as a calendar as well. I had the privilege of sitting through the demonstration with a large school group, most of whom were not in the least bit interested in the history of the place, as their loud, disruptive conversations proved. I watched a nicely done documentary on the tombs and then it was time to proceed to the bus stop for my appointed tour.

I walked out of the visitor center and crossed over the slow-flowing river on a long bridge. The rolling hills and broken forests of the surrounding countryside shined a radiant green in the early morning sun. Dew blanketed the grass and glistened in the light. The meadow that lined the bank of the River Boyne had a timeless beauty - It was the perfect place for a long picnic. I had the whole landscape to myself and I was considering taking a seat at the river’s edge for a while to enjoy it, but, as is most often the case, it was all private property. A noisy group of people started crossing the bridge and reminded me of why I was there - It was time to catch my bus. I walked the rest of the way down the path where I found an overcrowded seating area and a turn-about filled with small busses - I don’t have any idea how I hadn’t noticed the noise from the place down in the meadow. I found my group and we boarded the bus. We drove down a lovely lane between large pastures filled with sheep and cows. Several of the old farm houses were made of stone and all of them were lovely. The bus dropped us off in a small parking area and drove off. I followed the rest of the group across the street and into the complex that contained the passage tombs of Knowth. The path ended at a fairly odd looking and completely deserted guard shack. Beyond the building several grassy domes rose up in beautiful, green symmetry - They were clearly manmade. I was preparing to set off and explore the surrounding mounds when a lady asked us all to gather around her. She ended up being our mandatory tour guide and she was very knowledgeable about the site. While she reiterated everything I had learned in the visitor center I got my camera ready and started taking pictures. An alarming thing happened next - My camera told me that the battery was out of juice. I tried each of my four spare batteries and they were all empty as well - Instant thoughts of dread flowed through my mind, thinking that I had forgotten a very important step in taking good pictures. After I thought about it for a moment I knew there was a problem, because I had charged all of the batteries a few days before in London. I decided it was a problem with the camera’s electronics, which made perfect sense considering the rough treatment it had received crossing the Southern Ocean and in the Namib Desert. I pushed the battery in and out several times hoping that it was just a corrosion problem that could be worked out. On about the tenth try, the camera came to life and my photo session began - That same problem would end up plaguing me over the following four months of my journey, but at least it could be fixed.

Closer inspection of the largest passage tomb revealed a curb of beautifully carved stones that ringed the mound and gave it the look of a mushroom - I was in a human sized Smurf village! The main tomb at Knowth was unique in the area, because it had not one, but two passages and two separate internal rooms. We walked past several of the smaller mounds, each with their own opening, and then we stopped at a carved stone pillar that marked one of the entrances to the large mound. We stood there and talked about the mound and the carvings, most of which were geometrical designs typical of Neolithic carvings. Sadly, we were not allowed inside the first passage, so we admired it from afar and then moved on. We learned about how Knowth had been nearly continuously occupied for several thousand years and the marks of each culture are fairly distinct. In the main mound there are remains of several subterranean chambers built by early Christians. One of those chambers, dominated by a large internal ditch, had been reconstructed and was open for exploration. The whole group packed into the small cube-like room adjacent to the second passage where we could read more about the tomb. While the room had been reconstructed using a good bit of modern concrete, it was still an interesting journey into the mounds mysterious interior. It also afforded a great view down the passage, which was blocked by a locked gate, but was lit up all the way down. We exited the chamber and took a quick look at a reconstructed standing timber circle that dated from around 2500 BC. When the tour ended we were given time to roam around the site a bit. I followed a trail up to the top of the main tomb and then I slowly walked around the base taking in the amazing Neolithic art. Knowth was an amazing place. I had never heard of it prior to my friends mentioning it in Zambia, but it was certainly one of the highlights of my archaeological journey around the world, partly because I knew absolutely nothing about the place before I got there. We met the bus at the appointed time and headed off to our next stop, Newgrange, a place considered by many to be one of the most important Neolithic sites in all of Europe.

We came to a stop at the base of a large, gradually sloping grassy hill. Crowning the top was a massive mound faced with a thick wall of white, quartz stone. In front of the mound were several standing stones of varying sizes and shapes. We walked over to the guard shack, this time heavily staffed, and we waited for our appointed tour. I was on tour with a family from Canada who were in town visiting with some of their Irish family that they had made contact with in recent years. Our guide gathered us up in a group and told us the rules of our visit. We were asked not to touch anything and to be respectful of the site and then he said, “When we go inside the passage no photography will be allowed.” That answered the question that I had been hopefully pondering since I discovered that I could not go inside the tombs at Knowth - I was excited, despite the photography restriction! We walked along the gleaming white wall of quartz, which was reconstructed by archaeologists based on their findings during the excavation of the site, and then we came to a stop among a group of standing stones near the entrance of the tomb. Our guide explained the importance of the spirals and swirls of the intricately carved entrance stone and then explained the surrounding landscape and the importance of Newgrange itself, which was the traditional birth place of a few of Ireland’s Celtic myths. A large group of people filed out of the entrance and it was our turn.

We walked over a small bridge built to protect the entrance stone and then we entered the dimly lit stone passage. Despite a warning by the man helping us into the passage I bumped my head on the low entrance capstone. It was amazing inside. The walls of the passage were made of standing slabs of stone that angled in towards the top. The roof of the passage was made of similarly large slabs of stone laying flat. A few of the slabs were carved with Neolithic designs. I had been feeling a little bad that my parents had decided not to come with me - I felt that they were missing out on an amazing experience - but as I squeezed down the amazingly cramped passage I was glad that they had stayed in Dublin. I thought back to the last time they had allowed me to be tour guide. We were in Aruba and I had selected a nice bat cave to explore on the south end of the island. It wasn’t until we had all climbed through the narrow entrance passage and were standing in a lovely bat infested room among stalactites and stalagmites that I discovered that both of my parents were claustrophobic in a bad way - I suppose I should have already known that my mom didn’t like bats, considering her love for birds. After my mom spotted her first bat she started a somewhat frantic screaming that excited the bats, which, up to that point, had been hanging from the ceiling in a peaceful slumber, and their fluttering around made my parents bolt for the exit - I was impressed, because getting out of the cave required a vertical climb of five or six feet and they both hurdled it like it was a bump in the road. That evening in the poolside bar, my parents declared for the world to hear that the experience would forever be known as ‘The LAST TIME their oldest son would be the tour guide!’ I knew they would not have handled the passage very well and it would have been a shame to visit the place without going inside. We congregated in the small internal compartment, which was in the shape of a cross and contained large stone basins in the three openings. The room’s ceiling was dome shaped, formed by an impressive adaptation of the corbelled vault (flat slabs of stone stacked one on top of the other with each additional layer sticking out a bit further over the room until they join at the top), and gave a fairly roomy feel to the chamber. We were told that the stone basins in the points of the cross would have contained the cremated remains of the kings, as well as burial offerings. They turned the lights off and we were standing in nearly complete darkness - It was time to observe the amazing phenomenon that has gained Newgrange its place of importance among Europe’s ancient sites. A beam of light shattered the darkness. Slowly the beam widened until the entire room was filled with brilliant light. Slowly the light dimmed back into the form of a lone beam and then it disappeared and we were in darkness again. We were told that the phenomenon, which only occurs during the winter solstice, lasts a bit longer than the demonstration. To be at Newgrange during the solstice is apparently an amazing experience, but spaces are dealt out in lottery fashion and it could take years to get the chance. The lights came back on and we slowly filed out of the chamber and back through the passage into the sunlight. Our tour was over, but we still had a good bit of free time to explore the exterior of the tomb. I explored the standing stones and then I walked around the mound looking at the stone curb and the many stone carvings. The surrounding countryside was beautiful with rolling hills covered by green fields separated by clumps of forest and an occasional farmhouse in the distance. My time at Newgrange was over. On the ride back to the visitor center we got stuck behind a huge herd of sheep and cows that were being moved from one field to another. There were lovely dogs and men on horseback and lots of noise - It was a great way to end my visit to Bru’ na Boinne.

The ride back to Dublin was uneventful. I made it back to my hostel at around noon where I found a note from my parents stuck to the message board. The directions on the note led me across the Liffey to a two story pub in the Temple Bar area. I looked around for a while before I found my family and then I sat down to a late lunch and we shared the happenings of the day. We spent the rest of the evening exploring the pubs in the area. It was our last evening with Cato and Mona, so we wanted to make it a good one. The evening progressed into a late night pub crawl where we enjoyed excellent conversation and lively music and we all had a wonderful evening together. The time eventually came, late in the evening, to say goodnight. I said farewell to Cato and Mona and thanked them for meeting us in Dublin. They told me I was welcome to visit them in Norway anytime and then we parted ways. As I walked back to my hostel among the crowds of people in the Temple Bar area I couldn’t help but be thankful for my family and the amazing connection that exists between us all, regardless of how long we have known each other or how often we see each other.

The following morning I strolled into the Shelbourne Hotel with my backpack on and went up to my parent’s room. I was clearly not the model of their usual clientele, but nobody seemed to mind. A few hours later the car was packed and we were navigating our way south out of Dublin. Our journey across Southern Ireland had begun.

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Photos

Newgrange
Newgrange is considered by many to be one of the most important Neolithic sites in Europe.

The Spire and the Post Office
Two of Dublin's landmarks on O'Connell Street.

Along the River Boyne
This is the grassy meadow I wanted to sit in.

Stained Glass and Gothic Arches
The interior of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin was amazing.

The Barque Belem
I got to take a tour down memory lane on this French flagged tall ship.

The Shelbourne
While I didn't stay there, I did spend a lot of time at this fancy hotel.

A First Meeting
Cato, Mona, Ken and me in Temple Bar.

Cato
A grand tour guide.

Molly Malone
Selling cockles and mussels, among other things.

At the Brewery
This is my parents at the Guinness brewery.

Paving Stones
The lovely driveway at the brewery.

Saint Patrick's Cathedral
This is the site where St. Patrick himself baptised early Christians in a holy well.

Flying Buttresses
The beautiful stone work on Christ Church Cathedral.

The Stone Bridge
This is the lovely stone bridge that connects the Christ Church Cathedral with the Synod Hall.

Dublin City Walls
Not much of the wall still exists, but they date from the thirteenth century.

At the Brazen Head
The music at the oldest pub in Dublin was great.

The Irish Countryside
Lovely fields of green and gold.

A Farm House
This was one of the magnificent farm houses near Knowth.

The Entrance Standing Stone
This was the entrance to one of the two passages at the Knowth passage tomb.

The Mounds of Knowth
The green burial mounds at Knowth were lovely.

A Smurf Village
I know, it only looks a little like a group of mushrooms.

Bru' na Boinne
The mounds at Knowth were very lovely.

Down the Passage of Knowth
We couldn't go down the passage, but we were able to see it.

Neolithic Carvings
This is the beautifully carved entrance stone at Newgrange.

Standing Stones
There were several standing stones at Newgrange.

Neolithic Grandeur
Newgrange's hill top location is stunning.

A Curb Stone
Another example of the lovely carved stones at Bru' na Boinne.

A Guard Tower
This is a construction from a later time, but it is still old by our standards.

Music and Merriment
This is my family at a pub in Dublin. From left to right: Ken & Kathy (Parents), Cato & Mona (Norwegian Family)

Serving up the Brew
Mona an mom trying out a new profession.

An Angry Horseman
The man on the horse decided to hit Mona on the head with his stick, which wasn't very nice.

My Musical Mom
Singing in the pub. She eventually got to borrow a guitar as well.