Winter Solstice Sunrise at Newgrange, Ireland
5,000 years ago, an extraordinary people lived in Ireland. They were farmers, hunters and builders. Without the benefit of the wheel, and with tools made only of flint, they carved their culture into history. Along the banks of the River Boyne, they built houses to their dead, repositories to their spirit – monuments to immortality. Brú na Boinne: Monument to Immortality
Newgrange – exterior (image courtesy SacredSites.com)
I don’t spend all my time involved in learning and development. No, no, no. Among my more arcane, but nevertheless very satisfying interests is in the culture of the Neolithic (New Stone Age), and particularly the culture of the Beaker People of Western Europe. An event central to the lives of the people of this culture in Ireland (which resonates with us today) occurs today December 21st on the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere.
At ten minutes to nine on the morning of the shortest day of the year, a pale and weak sun slowly rises above a ridge in the Boyne River valley in County Meath, Ireland. As the sun’s rays penetrate the dawn mist, a solitary building sits atop it hill… waiting. Waiting as it has every year for over fifty centuries to shine once again as a beacon to the Spirit Of Man – a place where people forever bound to the earth can, however briefly, capture the Fire of the Sun and touch the sky.
Newgrange is best known for the illumination of its tomb passage and chamber by the winter solstice sun. Above the entrance to the passage at Newgrange there is a special opening called a roof-box. Its purpose is to allow sunlight to penetrate the chamber on the shortest days of the year around the Winter Solstice.
Light Enters the Tomb at Newgrange (image courtesy Irish Times)
At dawn, from the 19th to the 23rd December of every year, a narrow beam of light penetrates the roof-box and reaches the floor of the chamber, gradually extending to the rear of the passage. As the sun rises above the horizon, the single light-beam widens within the chamber so that the whole room becomes dramatically illuminated. This event lasts for 17 minutes, beginning at sunrise at 8.52am. Newgrange’s accuracy as a time-telling device is all the more remarkable when you consider that it was built 500 years before the Great Pyramids in Giza, and more than 1,000 years before the famous Stonehenge megalith in Britain.
The interior of the Newgrange chamber (or tumulus) consists of a long passage leading to a cross-shaped chamber. This burial chamber has a corbelled roof which rises steeply to a high-point of close to twenty feet above the floor surface. The recesses in the chambers contain large stone basins which would have held the cremated remains of those being deposited in the tomb. 
At the entrance to Newgrange (see image right) lies the highly-decorated Entrance Stone. The carvings on the stone include a triskele or triple-spiral motif which is found only at Newgrange. This motif is repeated along the passage into the tomb, and is carved into the rock again inside the burial chambers of the tumulus.
Despite much speculation, we still do not – and probably never will – know the meaning of these carvings, but I think that we can say that on some level, they indicate a perception of the divine on the part of the tomb builders. In Ireland, Newgrange (and the other monuments of the Boyne valley ritual landscape) represents a thread to our culture that leads us back to our ancestors, the very first farmers and settlers on the land. If you are part of the Irish diaspora, it’s part of your heritage too. Beyond this little island of Ireland, it represents the richness and depth and quality of human knowledge, and ability, and capacity to wonder, and achievement.
In 2007 and 2008, the event was streamed live over the web; sadly budget cuts by the Irish government mean that the 2009 solstice was not streamed. As an early Christmas present, this year the event will be streamed live:
- If you live in Ireland, you can watch the solstice from 08.55 GMT via RTÉ Live, News Now, and the RTÉ News app for iPhone
- In the rest of the world, you can view the event via Newgrange.com
You can get a sense of the occasion by viewing archive footage of the the absolutely spectacular 2007 event here, and the 2008 event here (both in Windows Media format). For those of you who couldn’t make it to Newgrange today (or who have a Mac or Linux machine, ergo poor or non-existent Windows Media viewing capabilities) as a special solstice treat I have created an edited (about 10 minutes) version of the 2007 Newgrange Winter Solstice sunrise.
[Video source courtesy of the Irish Office of Public Works]
Solstice means “sun stop”: it’s that point in the year where the world pauses – just for a moment – before the renewal that comes with the new year begins. If you have the luxury of time in this busy season, I think that it’s worthwhile if you too could pause, reflect on this event that represents the imagination and ingenuity of a people who built for the Ages.
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December 21 2011 06:00 am | e-learning
3 Responses to “Winter Solstice Sunrise at Newgrange, Ireland”
Lisa Van Gemert on 21 Dec 2011 at 10:26 pm #
This is wonderful! Being Irish, I love it (don’t let the Dutch name fool you – I married that). If you are interested in ideas of ways to celebrate this with kids (or adults), check out my post at http://www.giftedguru.com/?p=465 on celebrating the winter solstice.
Golf Cart Reviews » Winter Solstice Sunrise at Newgrange, Ireland on 22 Dec 2011 at 7:03 am #
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Michael Hanley on 24 Dec 2011 at 7:09 pm #
Thanks Lisa – happy Christmas to you and yours!
Michael
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