Scott

Jan 16, 2008

The third day we were in Dublin we took a coach tour of a few places north of town. The first place we went to was Newgrange, where they had an amazing museum featuring the people from the Neolithic period who lived around 3,000 B.C. The museum was very interesting and filled with fun facts about how people lived, and even thrived, so very many years ago. Some interesting facts I learned were that their average height was less than five-and-a-half feet, and the infancy death rate was about three out of four. The museum tour also included taking a short bus trip up to a stone structure that had been built 5,000 years ago by these people. It was buried about three meters below a large grassy hill, and was built purely out of stones. Some very large stones were brought from miles away and smaller ones filled in the gaps. We actually got to go inside the tomb-like structure and explore its cross-like infrastructure. A lot of the rocks inside and out were beautifully decorated with symbols whose meanings have been lost throughout the years. The purpose of this passage tomb is unknown but what’s really cool about it is that every year on the summer solstice, and only then, the sun enters the passageway and the entire tomb is lit up. It was hard enough to think about how long ago this had been built, let alone how people who lived so long ago were able to create this amazingly intricate and precise stone structure that has lasted throughout all of these years.

After Newgrange we went to the Tower museum in Drogheda, which was also really interesting, but its history seemed very new compared to the Neolithics’. We also got to roam around in Drogheda for a while, and we visited a cathedral where they had the head of a saint who was tried in England for treason, then quartered; his head was sent back to this church as an example of what will happen to rebels. We got to see his skull that was still on display inside the church.

Overall, we got some good rest on the coach ride throughout the day where we could recharge after a few weeks of continuous traveling, and we got to see and learn about some truly amazing history.