Newgrange: Academic Obliteration. But Also Fraud?
Is the famous Solstice 'Sunbox' a Piece of 1960s Kitch?
Historical and other mysteries exist for a reason—or for reasons—which have yet to be fully resolved beyond the realm of what officialdom might have declared to be a ‘closed case’. This is part of the reason why such historical and other mysteries continue to endure. They endure because the powers-that-be present unsatisfactory and hollow explanations in order to account for anomalies and inconsistencies within their official narratives. On the other hand they also exist because human intuition speaks louder than propaganda and public ridicule.
WHEN THE FAIRIES DEPARTED NEWGRANGE
Part of the series of large monuments of the Brú na Bóinne megalithic complex, Newgrange is a prehistoric man-made mound located in County Meath and is one of the most famous and important megalithic sites from the Neolithic (New Stone Age) period. Officially dated at around 3200 BCE, Newgrange is older than both Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza. Newgrange is also these days a UNESCO World Heritage Site—along with the nearby sites of Knowth and Dowth—which form the main ancient mounds within the overall Brú na Bóinne (palace or mansion of the River Boyne) complex as a whole.
Long associated with fairies and folklore, the central—near circular—mound of Newgrange is roughly eighty-five meters (279 feet) in diameter and reaches an impressive height of 13.5 meters (44 feet). Today the site is merely a visitor's centre and tourist attraction, and in terms of appearance is a far cry from the alleged ‘derelict’ site it was before a so-called restoration took place to the mound half a century ago. Yet speak to anyone who had visited Newgrange before its brutalist artistic reimagining in the 1960s, and they will tell you it was a place of enchantment and ethereal energies. With mature trees growing on top of the mound and glimpses of the megalithic rock art appearing here and there among the hedges and bare grassy patches.
People who lived nearby Newgrange openly spoke of encounters with the Sidhe (fairy folk) among its exterior standing stones in a very open and candid manner. Even clearly educated people who thought nothing of saying such to radio and TV reporters. Others spoke of mysterious lights—reported at many neolithic sites in Ireland and the UK—strange sensations, missing time experiences (the fairy stray), and even glimpses of the mythological ‘Otherworld’ which is so central to Gaelic and Celtic spiritual and mythical traditions. Newgrange before its restoration was a place of the living. Living people with living folklore and mythology. After its restoration, it became a place of the dead. A transformation that tells us much about why some landscapes that were once sacred as recently as half a century ago can be robbed of their ‘magic’ as well as the effects upon our consciousness.
Behind the Newgrange ‘experience’, lies an appalling act of academic vandalism and an abomination of antiquities. However, the destruction of Newgrange as Ireland’s premier ancient monument along with its literal redesign as a government bureaucratic monstrosity may not be an accident after all, and may well be a result of spiritual pathologies that reach deeply into the nature of human consciousness. Perhaps at some level represents a war upon the human psyche itself.
In 1983, Irish Celtic Rock band Clannad released their seventh studio album entitled Magical Ring. For many people, the standout track on the record was the band’s beautifully haunting sonic exploration into the mysteries and magic of the ancient monument entitled Newgrange. For many of us at the time—and in the decades since—the Clannad song Newgrange sums up the effects of encountering ancient landscapes everywhere. As well as the many mysterious megalithic and other ancient sites have upon our emotional and psychic states. The tragic irony in all this is that Newgrange when confronted directly and in the stark reality of its UNESCO guise, feels nothing like the Clannad song makes one feel about the place.
Clannad being composed of a musical family from Donegal had overlaid their own emotional and psychic gravitas—derived from their growing up within the Gaelic myth-saturated and haunted windswept landscapes around the coastal town of Gweedore within the far northwest of Ireland—upon the Newgrange in musical form, and by doing so tells us much about the true nature and function of ancient and mysterious monuments and landscapes. In effect, Clannad had imposed their sense of natural magic upon Newgrange by writing and recording a song about the location. The band from Gweedore—which also gave the world Enya—had performed something of psychic archaeology and sympathetic restoration up Newgrange. Something that Newgrange in its present state of 1960s post-modernist obliteration no longer deserves.
FROM ENCHANTED FAIRY MOUND TO BUCKET LIST TOURIST TRAP
The monument's stand-out feature, and what makes Newgrange particularly remarkable is the long, narrow passage leading to a central chamber. The passageway is aligned with the rising sun on the precise date of Winter Solstice, allowing sunlight to penetrate the chamber at sunrise. Illuminating its interior for a brief period during the solstice via a ‘sun box’ above the roof of the chamber. While the sun box authenticity remains controversial—some claim it is merely an artistic gimmick created during the restoration—there is no doubt that the entrance to the mound itself is—and was intended to be—aligned with the rising of the sun over the spectacular vista of the Boyne Valley on the winter solstice morning.
As has been something of a fad since the 1960s, the general speculation is that this alignment suggests that Newgrange was used for astronomical and ceremonial purposes, possibly related to rituals surrounding death and rebirth or agricultural cycles. Aside from the ‘grand calendar’ aspects, very little thought is given to deeper esoteric interpretations of the winter solstice alignment Newgrange. Such as the event being used primarily for magical purposes rather than merely agricultural ones. What if the rays of the sun were a kind of symbolic insemination to charge the mound with a cosmic sun child? A kind of astro-geomantic sex magic ritual. Or complex rituals involving the entire culture akin to the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece Involving a series of ceremonies, processions, and rituals held over several days, and culminating in a sacred initiation ceremony.
Within the Eleusinian Mysteries were central themes of the mysteries revolved around the myth of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, and her daughter Persephone, who was abducted by Hades, the god of the underworld. Very similar to themes found in Irish mythology. Surely something as complex and sophisticated as this would have also taken place at Newgrange? Resplendent with the same complex and symbolic spiritual depth and gravitas.
The Newgrange visitors center would have you believe the ancient ceremonies were nothing beyond animal skin-clad yokels grunting at the rising sun. Yet this dehumanization of our ancient ancestors is also what provides the unspoken justification for turning their sacred sites such as Newgrange and Stonehenge into tourist traps under the captivity of bureaucracies.
The restoration plans for Newgrange were fermented in 1950s Ireland under de-facto control by the Catholic Church and as a result, the archaeology departments of universities such as Maynooth were the domain of Jesuit and Jesuit-approved academics who had one brief; To downplay the social and cultural significance of Irish society and cultural before the fictional creations of Aed of Sletty. When he invented the story of Saint Patrick almost seven hundred years after the time when the Romano-Briton evangelist was deemed to have arrived in Ireland to convert Ireland’s population to the now less secular remnants of the Roman Empire using a shamrock. Ironically it has the same overall geometric shape as the triple spiral rock art carved by Neolithic artists within the central chamber at Newgrange.
So next time you behold Newgrange in it present state think more along the lines of a 1960s drive-in movie theater in Akron, Ohio or somewhere similar. Because that is what it has become. Thousands of tons of cement, concrete and steel reinforced beam abomination. They killed our ancerstors. The stole our legacy. Until the day the monument is returned to its pre-1960s condition then we always have the Clannad song.
Newgrange as re-imagined by Disney? Wouldn't a Ferris wheel ride look nice on top of the mound?
I see that Gobekli Tepe is now managed under WEF and even though only 5 to 10 percent of the whole site has been excavated, the are planting orchards all around it and saying further excavations can wait for future generations. Our real history/heritage is always being hidden from us.
On the ball Thomas. The state does a disservice chipping away at our history. I'm feeling an urge to go up to Newgrange and then the Hill of Tara. And just seep up the landscape and reimagine back in the annals of time. The Liafail is up in Tara I think, as well☘️🇮🇪🧚♂️