Mike's Site

Went on an excellent day tour to Bru na Boinne about an hour’s bus ride north of Dublin. Bru na Boinne is a Neolithic ruin site with several passage tombs under great man-made mounds.

These tombs and other artifacts date back to about 3500 BC, 1000 years older than the Egyptian pyramids and 500 years earlier than Stonehenge.

Stone Age man wasn’t a dumb knuckle dragger. They could build. The burial chamber under all that dirt hasn’t leaked since it was built.

Stone Age man also knew enough astronomy to know when the solstices and equinox were. The tomb passages are aligned so that on the solstice the sun’s rays beamed down the passage into the chamber.

Got to go down the passage at the Newgrange burial mound. It was about 100 feet long, lined with big stones. It reminded me of being in a cave.

Also on the tour, saw some the beautiful green countryside complete with cows, sheep and farmhouses. The grassy fields of the valley, the Boyne Valley, are a cow’s heaven.

The tour was run by guide Mary Gibbons. She’s been doing these tours for quite awhile. They’re definitely for people who like history and archeology. Some of Mary’s talks could be a stand-up comedy act. I think she said, to be Irish is to be depressed, Catholic and an alcoholic.