Sacred Sites

Newgrange Neolithic Passage Tomb

Our Pagan ancestors built Newgrange over 5000 years ago in Ireland. How and why this was built are two of the most intriguing questions that archaeologists still ask today.

Located just north of Dublin, Newgrange sits atop a hill that overlooks the River Boyne on the eastern coast of Ireland in County Meath. Built around 3200BC, it is 600 years older then the Giza Pyramids in Egypt and it predates Stonehenge by 1,000 years. It is considered one of the best examples of a Passage/Portal Tomb in Ireland and in Western Europe.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about Newgrange is its alignment.

Every year on the morning of the winter solstice, the sun rises and begins its journey in the sky. The shaft of light enters through the roof box at the entrance of the passage tomb and illuminates the 60-foot tunnel that leads to the back wall of the chamber, and through to the basin that once held ancestral bones. This lasts for just 17 minutes beginning at dawn from the 19th to the 23rd of December.

During the tour they recreate the light as it once had illuminated the chamber. The moment leading up to this is a somber one, as they ask you to stand perfectly still while they turn off the lights in the tomb. While standing silently in the darkness your other senses become more aware, you feel and hear the wind rushing into the passage. As you close your eyes, you imagine what it must have felt like to be in this sacred place with your ancestors all around you.

Picture of our guide. Note the famous tri-spirals that decorate the Kerbstone at the entrance to Newgrange.

How and why did they build it?

In Neolithic times, farming was part of everyday life and essential to this flourishing culture. They had to have been fairly proficient at this in order to allow enough of the community to begin the building of this passage tomb.

This endeavor took several decades to build and used resources from as far away as the Wicklow Mountains, just south of Dublin and the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland. Over 200,000 tons of earth and stone were used in the construction.

The building of Newgrange required the skills of an architect, engineer, and surveyor and was built in a time when stone was used as an everyday material for tools. Reference sources, as well as tour guides at Newgrange estimate that the construction would have taken a crew of about 300, approximately 30 years to complete. The life expectancy at that time would dictate that the builders, who conceived this plan, would not live to see it completed. The generation that began the project knew that other hands would have to finish it.

Of what significance could this place hold in order to justify the labor and skill being taken away from farming, which creates and sustains the living?

It means, the dead were just as important to them as the living. Life and death were just two sides of the same coin to these people. Archaeologists have found a large number of bone fragments as well as large numbers of animal bones in the chamber. We are told that there is evidence that that these burial remains were taken in and out of the chamber at different times signifying ritual and ceremony.

What did the solstice mean to them and why was it connected to the ancestors?

With only the sun, the moon and the stars in the sky our ancestors lived by the cycles of life, they understood the sacredness of the earth. With the alignment of the solstice playing a large part in the building of Newgrange, they must have seen a higher purpose of special significance to the light returning to the land. It must have been a symbol of great hope to these people who had lasted through a long winter. Perhaps on the verge of death they had a better understanding of the precarious thread between those worlds. Maybe they imagined the light bringing back the ancestors or the light could have been perceived as a bridge to cross over to the other world.

Megalithic art in the form of decorated Kerbstones signify a place used for ceremony and ritual.

Archaeologists have categorized the range of designs that make up the decoration on the stones of Newgrange. They number many in forms, but of all the designs at Newgrange the most common are spirals, lozenges and zigzags (chevron). Some say the symbols represent the totality of existence, of life, death and rebirth. Other interpretations of the spirals are said to represent a local map of the valley’s three tombs; an image of the universe; the sign of the Goddess Brigid; a symbol of the life force as in the spiral of life.

One of the most famous stones in megalithic art, include a triple spiral motif found on the kerbstone at the entrance to the burial chamber. While Newgrange has it’s share of amazing art, the majority of the megalithic art is located at Newgrange's sister tomb, Knowth.

Whether on wood, stone or bone our ancestors communicated to us through symbols and they tell us a story. Visiting sacred sites allows us to travel to the past to find them, to stand in their footsteps and feel like a part of something greater than ourselves. We share a common thread with our ancestors and that spirit is present in all things. We need only be reminded that the same moon shines down on us and the same sun warms us. We are connected through spirit and their ancient echoes speak to us even now.

Newgrange is a World Heritage Site

On the list of places to take a Pagan pilgrimage, this is at the top of the list. Newgrange has as many as 200,000 visitors each year, making it the most visited archaeological site in Ireland. When visiting Dublin you can easily arrange a convenient day tour to Newgrange. If you are more adventurous and decide to head out on your own, then you will find signs with the familiar spiral symbol marking the way to the passage tomb.

Having been lost each time I have visited, my advice is to stay off the back roads, and don’t be afraid to stop and ask directions. For the common joke among travelers is that the spiral symbol literally means, “You’re lost in Ireland.”

Newgrange is a World Heritage Site. Inscription on this list confirms the exceptional universal quality of a cultural or natural site, which deserves protection for the benefit of humanity

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author: Rebecca Sommers