Friday June 21

We've spent today visiting cemeteries. Well not your normal cemeteries.These ones are 5000 years old. That's 500 years older than the Pyramids of Giza and 1000 years older than Stonehenge. There are three main sites with Newgrange at the centre. We visited it and Knowth which has the largest of the mounds. These are called Passage Tombs because they consist of a passage through a mound to a central chamber where the remains of cremated bodies are laid. The passages and chambers have been built first then rock and soil have been placed over them to form the mounds that we see today. it's been estimated that there were the remains of up to 100 bodies placed in one of the chambers at Newgrange. At Newgrange we were actually able to walk down one of the passages into the central chamber. This passage is set to align with the rising sun on the winter Solstice so for 6 days from Dec 17 to 22 the sun's light shines directly into the central chamber. We also stopped Kells on the way back and visited ST Columba's Church (of Ireland) and saw their copy of the Book of Kells which of course originated form the monastery there.