21 June 2012 NEWGRANGE Thursday

An hour's drive in the rain and through a seemingly never-ending 2.8km tunnel transported us to the Neolithic site of Newgrange ancient burial grounds at Bru na Boine (on the River Boyne).

Newgrange is the biggest of 40 tombs and on the Winter Solstice the first sunray penetrates the sun door, illuminating the furthest chamber, providing a portal for the ashes to be reincarnated for the new life.  It is an incredible piece of architecture and the mind boggles at the amount of research needed for the chambers and direction of sun, plus the roof inside is domed and built with no cement!!
No photo's allowed inside, but the decorative stones outside were fascinating too - the meanings of which are simply being guessed at by researchers of today.

You can see the sun door above the mantle with quartz above it which creates a golden glowing effect as the sun rises, illuminating the entrie dome in a halo of shimmering sunlight. A remarkable work of ingenuity.

If you look carefully you'll be able to compare the height of the people at the entrance to the top of the dome. 
Walking around and touching symbols that depict rituals of burial and afterlife which are 5000 years old was quite surreal.

Nevertheless, shaking the eerieness off of us, we made for good old modern day enjoyment at the Arlington Hotel Temple Bar where we were entertained by The Legends singing table-banging sing-along roudy Irish music. 
Halfway through the evening, a group of 4 Irish dancers provided us with beautifully choreographed dances all perfectly performed.

Yeah yeah you can only see two dancers, but I wasn't the photographer so, not my problem!

There was also this fascinating gentleman living inside a picture frame?

Taxi home with the driver informing us that it never stops raining in Dublin, it just becomes warm rain in the summer. We can vouch for that, to be sure, to be sure!