Newry (Olympic Day 4)

I apologize for the delay in putting out this blog. I'm way behind and have been spending most of my time trying to keep up with the Olympics. I hope that you enjoy it anyway.

Today we are off to the Republic of Ireland to visit the neolithic site of Newgrange and to look for the home of my mother's mother's family in County Cavan.

The weather is marginal as we head out - not raining, but definitely threatening. We have not been on the motorway for more than twenty minutes when our GPS system beeps telling us of traffic problems ahead. It turns out that there had been a big crash earlier in the morning and the police (called the Garda in Ireland) have closed the highway. We are directed off the highway along with all of the lorries (trucks) ahead of us. The fact that we were no longer on the motorway did not seem to affect the speed that these trucks were going. We are flying along these winding country roads at 80kph (50mph). We can't slow down because we are wedged in-between two speeding trucks. We go through a couple villages. Everyone in town is out looking at the street because they are probably seeing more traffic in their villages in a few minutes than they would typically see in a few months. Mercifully, we reach the end of the detour and get back onto the highway.

We get to the visitor's center in the Boyne valley and transfer to a shuttle bus for the ride to the site. We are on one of the earliest tours so there are not too many people with us. It is quite a diverse group. We hear Japanese, German, some Scandinavian language and what I think might be Polish on our 30 person bus. Our guide tells us that Newgrange was built about 5,200 years ago and is now listed as a World Heritage Site. It's story is similar to the first Chinese emperor's tomb in X'ian. It was abandoned. The outside of the mound gradually collapsed until it blended into the hill it was built on. And there it sat until it was rediscovered in the 1600's by the land owner. In the 1960's, a Professor O'Kelly from University College Cork excavated and rebuilt Newgrange as he believed that it originally looked. Here is what it looks like today:

Building Newgrange was no spur-of-the-moment decision. The white quartz on the outer wall came from about 50 miles away in one direction while the round darker stones on the mound were brought from another site about 50 miles away in a different direction. In addition, more than 300 huge stones, each weighing 1-10 tons, were brought from a quarry near a fishing village about 20 miles away. It is thought that these stones were brought to within 4km (2.4 miles) of the site by boat and then rolled uphill on logs. Our guide tells us that they estimate that getting one of these stones to the site would have taken a team of 80 men 4 days. Amazingly, the site was abandoned within 50 years after they finished building it.

While human remains were discovered in Newgrange, the thing that makes it famous is that the central axis of the tomb is exactly aligned with the sun on the shortest day of the year. Even after more than 5,000 years, the sun still makes it up into the center area of the tomb only on December 21st. Here is how they do it:

The small "window" above the entrance is where the sun shines in. It is at roughly floor level inside the tomb. The "alley" around the entrance completely keeps the sun out of the tomb except for 2-3 days before and after December 21st. On those other days, there will be dull light inside for a few minutes, but no direct sunlight. We all go into the tomb (several very low areas for me while Sean does the limbo under the low parts). Once inside, they turn out the lights and then they turn on a light to simulate what it looks like inside on December 21st. They tell us that they have a lottery for people to get to go in on December 21st to see what it looks like for real.

Inside, they also show us the construction of the roof consisting of interlocked stones that are tilted to the outside of the tomb. The construction was incredibly good because no rock has ever fallen inside the tomb and it is still completely dry. In fact, the only indication of exposure to the outside is some algae that is growing on some of the walls and the graffiti left by people from the 1600's when the tomb was first entered.

Outside, there are a number of large vertical stones that were added to the site many years after the rest of the site was constructed:

The whole Boyne valley has smaller versions of these tombs. In fact, the small green hill at the left of the golden field in the above picture is another one of these tombs. By the time that we get out, the rain is starting and we are glad that we beat it. We have a quick lunch at the visitor's center and then head toward County Cavan to look for family sites.

For a while, the combination of Mom's dead-reckoning and our GPS is working well, but shortly after we get to Bailieborough:

we start getting lost. Part is that it has been a few years since Mom has been here and new buildings have been built. The other part is that our GPS shows us in the middle of a large box with no roads where we are. It is so bad, we are starting to call it the Everlost system. Where we are is on a bunch of roads that are little more than goat paths. The rain is starting to collect in potholes and I'm starting to get worried that a) we will get stuck and b) we will have no idea of which direction to travel if we do get stuck.

Through some combination of skill and blind luck, we find the town of Corraneary where the Gilmores, Hills, Gambles and Lucases are from:

This might not be the middle of nowhere, but you can certainly see it from here. ;- ) Here is a picture of the Corraneary Presbyterian church just down the street:

After some time going in the wrong directly, we make our way to the motorway. It is still only around 4pm, but Mom decided that we should have an authentic Irish meal so we stop at a place called Fitzpatricks. Normally, it would have a great view of the lough, but today, we can't see beyond the other side of the street. Since I'm in Ireland for the first time, I order a half pint of Guinness to go with my steak sandwich. I hope that my Irish ancestors will forgive me, but while the Guinness is not bad, I prefer a stout if I'm drinking dark beer. All around us are road signs, old Guinness advertisements, farm equipment, etc. All of this helped reduce my stress level after all of the driving. Then we head out so that we can watch the Olympics at the Malcomson's. The main event is Michael Phelps in swimming. As expected, he beats Ryan Lochte by about 0.6 seconds to become the most highly decorated Olympian in history.

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