It was not until 1967 that archaeologists became aware of Newgrange's deliberate alignment with the midwinter sunrise. Since then, and again this morning, pilgrims from all quarters have gathered for the solstice at one of the ancient world's greatest sites, writes Eileen Battersby.
Early this morning, winter began its slow, always welcome death. Before sunrise, scientists, archaeologists and dreamers, experts and amateurs, believers of all shades of opinion and understanding, from Ireland and abroad, gathered at the great Stone Age burial tumulus of Newgrange, Co Meath. Their shared objective: merging the spiritual with the scientific, mystery with fact, belief with curiosity and wonder, participation in a modern ritual inspired by a defining achievement of ancient architecture.
It is the witnessing of a tradition, sometimes spectacular, at others more muted, that of the dawn light making its dramatic journey up the narrow 19-metre-long passage towards the heart of the tomb. Although devised with ceremonial intent, the effect creates an eerie intimacy.
The winter solstice spans five days. But today, December 21st, is special, indeed sacred. It is the shortest day of the year, more night than day, and from this profound darkness, daylight will, over the coming weeks and months, gradually reassert itself. And with this light comes hope and the first signs of new growth as nature awakens and death gives way to life. Newgrange is Ireland's most famous prehistoric monument, a statement, a gesture of respect for the dead, a ceremonial site and powerful evidence of the sophisticated genius of the Neolithic ancestors who settled on the banks of the Boyne some 5,000 years ago.
As the archaeologist, R.A.S. Macalister, concluded, in a series of public lectures delivered between 1915 and 1916 (later published in book form as Ireland in Pre-Celtic Times, Dublin 1921): "There is not, north of the Alps, a relic of antiquity more impressive than this mound . . . Even Stonehenge, though to the eye more imposing, is second in interest to New Grange. For Stonehenge is dead. The colossal stones stand where the builders left them, and we ask in vain the whence and wherefore of their existence. But New Grange is still alive with memories and traditions."
Macalister also noted: "We know something - not so much as we should wish, but still something - of the builders of the mound." And he added, perceptively, "the story is not yet fully unravelled". He was right.
Several generations of dedicated antiquarians and professional archaeologists, Macalister included, remained unaware of the mound's scientific marvel, its deliberate alignment with the midwinter sunrise. It was this dramatic discovery, investigated and confirmed by Michael O'Kelly in 1967, some five years into his excavations, that initiated what has become the annual Newgrange pilgrimage, a symbolic celebration of the return, or perhaps the recapture, of the sun.
"It is clear," wrote Frank Mitchell, "that whoever planned Newgrange already knew how to make calculations about sunrise and could develop a system of survey points to lay out the site for construction."
In a new book, Newgrange and the Bend of the Boyne (to be reviewed shortly), archaeologist Geraldine Stout describes the monument as "the oldest astronomically aligned structure in the world, predating the first phase of Stonehenge by 1,000 years". So rooted has Newgrange become in our collective consciousness - and so central was it to late Stone Age man and his descendants - that it is difficult to grasp now how the monument, regarded by Seán P. Ó Ríordáin as "one of the most important ancient places in Europe", apparently disappeared into oblivion throughout the Middle Ages.
But, clearly, this is exactly what happened. The first modern reference to Newgrange dates from 1699, nine years after the Battle of the Boyne. The Welsh antiquarian, Edward Lhywd - or to use Sir William Wilde's spelling, "Llhwyd" - the keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford at the turn of the 18th century, toured Ireland in the spring of 1699.
Wilde acknowledged the Welshman as "the earliest describer of New Grange", predating the visit made by Sir Thomas Molyneux by some 25 years. In his beautiful travelogue-cum-field history narrative, The Beauties of the Boyne and its Tributary the Blackwater (Dublin 1849), Wilde, often a most colourful as well as learned companion, refers to a letter written by Lhwyd from Sligo, dated March 12th 1699. In it, the Welsh visitor notes: "I also met with one monument in this kingdom, very singular; it stands at a place called New Grange, near Drogheda, and is a mount, or barrow, of very considerable height, encompassed with vast stones, pitched on end, round the bottom of it, and having another, lesser, standing on the top."
As is often the case, Wilde proves an invaluable source, again quoting from Lhwyd: "The entry into this cave is at bottom, and before it we found a great flat stone, like a large tombstone, placed edgeways, having on the outside certain barbarous carvings, like snakes encircled, but without heads."
To Lhywd's eye, as to Wilde's some 138 years later, "under foot there were nothing but loose stones of every size, in confusion, and amongst them a great many bones of beasts, and some pieces of deer's horns". Subsequent examinations would reveal the remains of horses and, most excitingly, a piece of a bit, confirming the presence and use of horses beyond that of meat.
But back to 1699 and Lhwyd: as O'Kelly records in the definitive account of the site, Newgrange: Archaeology, Art and Legend (Thames and Hudson, 1982), "the discovery of the 'cave' at Newgrange came about through the need for stones on the part of the then landowner, Charles Campbell. Realizing that such were to be found in plenty under the green sod of a prominent mound on his farm, he instructed his labourers to carry some away and in doing so the entrance of the tomb was discovered."
The removal of the stones could be seen as an early example of developers, albeit unintentionally, impacting on heritage. In this case, the "intrusion" was well justified. O'Kelly acknowledges the fortunate coincidence of Lhwyd's visiting Ireland at the same time as the tomb's discovery. "On being told of the discovery he came to Newgrange and took careful note of all that was to be seen and heard. He wrote to his friends about it and four of his letters are preserved," he writes. It should be noted that some discrepancies exist: that letter dated March 1699 by Wilde is attributed to December 1699 by O'Kelly.
Even so, awareness of Newgrange has persisted, if initially sporadically, for 300 years. The entrance uncovered by Campbell's workmen became buried again, as Wilde in turn would discover, indicating that the monument tended to drift in and out of public attention. It featured in a Gabriel Beranger watercolour in 1775, with the artist observing "the place of the entrance . . . is not seen from the base, being hid by a heap of stones."
Studied by George Petrie, Wilde, William Wakeman and others in the 19th century, and comprehensively by George Coffey from the 1890s - culminating in his impressive New Grange and Other Incised Tumuli in Ireland (1912) - as well as by Macalister, R.L.Praeger, Harold Leask, and Ó Ríordáin, a full, formal excavation was not undertaken until 1962 when O'Kelly began work. Long before that, however, by 1890, the site was already under State care and some preliminary repair and conservation work had been carried out.
The more we know, the less we appear capable of responding to the magic of mystery. But scholars are not always cautious pragmatists. The pioneering responses of Wilde - who described Newgrange as "this stupendous relic of Pagan time, probably one of the oldest Celtic monuments in the world, which had elicited the wonder, and called forth the admiration of all who have visited it, and has engaged the attention of nearly every distinguished antiquary, not only of the British Isles, but of Europe generally, and has attracted pilgrims from every land" - retain a sense of adventure.
Pilgrims continue to gather and no doubt were there again this morning. Wilde would be pleased. "When we first visited New Grange, in the year 1837", he writes, he was alert to its neglected state, "the entrance was greatly obscured by brambles, and a heap of loose stones which had ravelled out from the adjoining mound."
Imagination is vividly alive in Peter Harbison's superb Pre-Christian Ireland (London 1988), a settlement study dominated by the achievement of Newgrange, which, he notes, "has been rightly compared to the community effort involved in the building of a great cathedral in the Middle Ages, or . . . of sending a rocket to the moon in our own day".
Prof Gabriel Cooney's innovative Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland (London 2000) brilliantly places Newgrange as a constant, "the centre" of a world picture and landscape evolving throughout thousands of years. A series of "fictional snapshot suggestions" describes the site, the monument and perceptions of both changing through time:
"The elders had reminded them that the first people were turned into stone so that they could always watch over the land and of the plan to put up huge stones, bigger than any living person, around the mound, to stand for the ancestors and to mark the sunrise at the important times before and after the shortest days."
In O'Kelly's account of the theory of the mound's solar alignment, he writes:
"A belief existed in the neighbourhood that the rising sun, at some unspecified time, used to light up the three-spiral stone in the end recess. We assumed that some confusion existed between Newgrange and the midsummer phenomenon at Stonehenge . . . we realised that it might be worthwhile to investigate the winter solstice when the sun rises in that quarter. We first did so in 1967."
On December 21st 1969, O'Kelly and his team recorded the following:
"At exactly 8.54 hours GMT the top edge of the ball of the sun appeared above the local horizon and at 8.58 hours, the first pencil of direct sunlight shone through the roof-box and along the passage to reach across the tomb chamber floor as far as the front edge of the basin stone in the end recess.
As the thin line of light widened to a 17- centimetre band and swung across the chamber floor, the tomb was dramatically illuminated and various details of the side and end recesses could be clearly seen in the light reflected from the floor. At 9.09 hours the 17-centimetre band of light began to narrow again and at exactly 9.15 hours, the direct light was cut off from the tomb.
For 17 minutes, therefore at sunrise on the shortest day of the year, direct light can enter Newgrange, not through the doorway, but through the specially contrived slit which lies under the roof-box at the outer end of the passage roof."
Anticipation and the excitement of sharing in an ancient ceremony dominate those moments of waiting for, and hopefully seeing, the rose gold beam of light. Equally, an emotion of surprising intensity takes over as the light retreats and is gone.