Ancient Ireland with Amy

We hired a car to take us up to Boyne Valley. Amy had a good nights rest (or as good as you can get on an air mattress in a new place with strange noises) and headed off to County Meath. Amy may have worked at AMAA with me, but she luckily is not an architect, her interest lie with archaeological artifacts and not the stunning buildings of Ireland. The first stop on our little bus tour was Knowth for Neolithic passage tombs and megalithic artwork. What made this site so interesting is the amount of kerbstones that show ancient artwork. We climbed to the top of the burial mounds to get a great view of the valley.

Next stop was Newgrange on the other side of the valley which is one of the most famous prehistoric sites in the world. How handy that it is right by where we live. Only 17 minutes for 4 days a year around the Winter Solstice the light will pour into to illuminate the passageway. There is a lotto draw, but of course I forgot to put my name in since only a few people each year can watch the event live from the passageway. You just have to hope for sunshine that day..... now I think I have more luck winning that lotto then sunshine.

We took a lunch break, and were smart enough to pack our own lunch of cheese, bread, granola bars and juice. We save lots of money and precious time by bringing our lunches and since Amy was a vegetarian we did not have to worry about trying to find something with no meat. We loaded up into the car and headed towards Monasterboice which have some of the tallest Celtic Crosses in County Louth. The crosses are covered with pictographs from both the new and old testament. It is always interesting roaming around old cemeteries, especially ones that have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years.

We then headed to Hills of Tara since there will be a new motorway going straight through the middle of it in the next year or so. This is where St Patrick's church is and some of the old ring forts were for the High Kings of Ireland. The hills are so green that I had to run down the hills and then roll down them. Since a lot of the Druids used to go there and the birds migrate over it since there are strong magnetic connections, I also decided to try some headstands, which were quite successful. We went to the fairy tree to make our wish, and I found my old wish there from several years ago. And of course that wish came true! So I made another and Amy made one too.

The three of us rushed back to the car to make our last stop of the day, Trim castle. This medievel castle used to be the centre of commerece of that county back in the day. It has also been used for such movies as Bravehart. Sadly it was closed by the time we got there, but we got to walk around and climb all over it. Ben has now become an expert driver by this point and flew back to Dublin. We ended the night heading back to Bruno's for a large dinner with a large group of all our friends that Amy could meet.