The Main Site of Newgrange Prior to Restoration
A friend and I were standing outside the main entrance to Ireland’s premier ancient site of Newgrange—located within the Boyne Valley of County Meath—when a large group of primary school children were merrily making their way towards the entrance to this five-thousand-plus-year-old monument. They were jovial and bright-eyed in the manner that school children all over the world tend to be on a day trip away from the classroom and then find themselves among new surroundings and experiences.
One by one my friend and I watch the children excitedly enter the monument resplendent with giddy anticipation and about to be given the state-sanctioned lecture—which everyone is subject to regardless of age or nationality—concerning the purpose of, and experience of what Newgrange was about and why it remains so important. After the allotted time, the children came out of the entrance transformed. Gone were the excited smiles and giddy demeanors. Instead, they were glum, disinterested, and in more than a few instances looking depressed—if not frightened—by what they had experienced. They had not so much been enlightened to the wonder and mystery of their ancient ancestors. Rather, they came out looking as if they were dealing with Post Traumatic Stress syndrome.
The So-Called ‘Restoration’ of Newgrange by Out of Control Archaeologist Michael J. O'Kelly Involved Using Hundreds of Tons of Reinforced Concrete So as to Create his Bizarre and Cold, Emotionless Edifice we See Today
My friend and I looked at each other, and without saying a word knew precisely what had happened to these children. Both my friend and I—now ourselves as adults—also knew that feeling whenever we found ourselves around the well-manicured and government-approved world-famous site that is the current Newgrange. For Newgrange today is a dead and cold place. Beyond this unfortunate present situation, Newgrange is almost soul-destroying—to those with a soul—and who care deeply about the ancient landscape, monuments, and especially the people/cultures who built them. Not just in Ireland, but all over the world.
Because behind the transformation of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed schoolchildren being psychically affected by 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 Folk-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 haunted 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 many mysterious megalithic and other ancient sites have upon our emotional and psychic states. The tragic irony in all this is that musical version of Newgrange when confronted directly and being 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 the Newgrange. Something that Newgrange in its present state of 1960s post-modernist obliteration no longer deserves.
It is what the Historian/ archaeologists/"Experts" do to ancient monuments everywhere.Early theories about the purposes of these mounds in Europe, the pyramids in Egypt, and the new worlds were built for and that becomes doctrine. Those that saw different explanations are usually dismissed out of hand. That is one of the reasons I have been watching Jeffrey Drumm's Land Of Chem explorations on YouTube. His video's are well worth the time: https://www.youtube.com/@thelandofchem/videos Here is one he did on a visit to Newgrange in 2023. He looks past the reconstructions and official descriptions and talks about the his take on the meanings and purposes. Site Visit 40: LOST ANCIENT HISTORY - Newgrange https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyQxM95ZBI0&t=51s His video's are well worth the time.
Uisneach too has lost its magic. All it took was the success of the Beltane festival to bring in crowds and the money. And Bru na Boinne has a curtain rail around it. Many sites are sleeping or have been disempowered by the OPW who in fear of insurance claims, place barbed wire and close off sacred sections. Through the lack of contact, these sites lose the sense of sacredness. The OPW seem to forget that the land is a living breathing thing, and is for everyone.