Experience the Equinox Sunrise at Meath’s Loughcrew Cairns                       
21st - 23rd September 2017

Experience the Equinox Sunrise at Meath’s Loughcrew Cairns 21st - 23rd September 2017

One of the country’s oldest monuments the Loughcrew cairns, a complex 5,000 year passage of tombs is an ideal location to witness the Equinox sunrise. The Office of Public Works (OPW) provides free admission to the site during the summer months and at dawn on the days of the Equinox sunrise, i.e. around March 21st and September 21st when the sun shines directly on the equator and the length of day and night is nearly equal.

The Loughcrew cairns, situated at the top of County Meath’s highest hills is a contemporary of the great monuments of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth at Brú na Bóinne, though on a smaller scale. There are about 30 tombs at Loughcrew, sited on four different hills known as Sliabh na Caillí, or, the Hills of the Witch.

Constructed during the Neolithic (New Stone Age), the monuments were used as burial places but, like those at Brú na Bóinne, they surely had a wider role. They would have been a focal point for the community, a place to honour the ancestors, a lasting symbol to their wealth and a territorial marker. The cairns probably had further functions in seasonal rituals and festivals.

Legend has it that the Hag or Witch formed the cairns when she jumped from one hill to the next dropping stones from her apron. After she had jumped onto three hills, she still had to get to the fourth and final hill in order to attain great power. In the attempt to get to the last hill, she fell and died. The story says that she is buried where she fell, on the slopes of Patrickstown Hill. 

The tombs have dominated the landscape south of Oldcastle for thousands of years and they can be seen from a great distance. Cairn T, on Carnbane East, is the best known and the most visited. The early farmers who constructed these impressive monuments would have gathered there to mark the beginning of spring and autumn and to celebrate the ever-continuing cycles of the year.

The Equinox sunrise at Loughcrew is considered less significant than that at Newgrange because the passage is shorter and wider. The sunlight enters the chamber at Cairn T and highlights the wonderful artwork on the back stone of the end recess for nearly an hour. By comparison, the Winter Solstice dawn light show at Newgrange lasts only 17 minutes.


要查看或添加评论,请登录

Kevin 'Boxer' Moran的更多文章

社区洞察

其他会员也浏览了