Travel Well Jack Roberts
A Real Life Indian Jones and an Irish Megalithic Legend
It is with a heavy heart I am reporting the death of one of my heroes Jack Roberts. Whose books and talks were of a massive influence upon me. I will never forget the day he told me that my own book The Druid Code was ‘fecking amazing’. For me this would be akin to Jimi Hendrix telling someone they were a brilliant guitar player. One of fondest memories I had was Jack telling me how he came to Ireland. He was a fisherman on an English trawler that ended up off the coast of Cork. He said that “Ireland appearing out the mist was like Tir Na Nog.”
He got off the trawler and never left Ireland. I could probably mention a million things that made Jack amazing; from him and Martin Brennan sleeping inside megaliths in the early 70s waiting to see if the sun, moon or star illuminated a specific piece of megalithic rock art. The stories just go on and on and there are thousands of us who knew Jack can still tell them and always will. A truly lovely guy who never lost his down to earth Cockney accent.
I was very saddened to receive a text message from a friend of mine in Skibbereen this morning telling me about the passing of Jack. When I moved to West Cork from Cork City in 1991 aged 10 years old I discovered one of his books on West Cork in a shop window and that's where it all started for me. I would spend any days off school with Jack's book cycling around the countryside on a bmx bike checking out all the ancient sites. My mission was to follow in his footsteps documenting and writing to preserve our history for future generations. Two days ago myself and a few friends were planning to take a tour of the Mizen peninsula in West Cork and I had one of Jack's books ready on the table to take with us, talk about high strangeness. We never met face to face but knew each other through Facebook as he used to follow my historical page and was a barrel of knowledge when I used to post about of his favourite sites in West Cork. As Thomas said, I also was humbled to have a hero of mine admire my own work. I really regret that I never got the chance to meet him in person.
Rest well fellow dolmen hunter.
What a wonderful interview you had with Jack Roberts. It made me think how interesting if he could have talked with Jeffrey Drumm of The Land of Chem explorations of the Pyramids of Egypt and his travels to explore the purposes of the sites in Ireland you showed in this interview. https://www.youtube.com/@thelandofchem
As you know, there were no burials in the pyramids and what they call sarcophagus in the pyramids were reaction chambers. I can no longer look at those structures without seeing long abandoned factory complexes with newer temples built on top of much older parts. Same with your mounds with the standing stones which may be lightning attractors. The white horse or stag on these mounds may indicate one of their purposes, besides being centers of the people to gather, the orientation to the solstice and other celestial events. It only makes sense that people would build such important places with multiple purposes and uses.
I am fascinated by what has been hidden from our history and the reasons why.