Society members witness the wonders of Newgrange and Old Mellifont

By Andrias MacCuilleann

It took two years to organize our 2007 annual outing due to the popularity of the burial sites in the prehistoric cemetery of Brugh na Boinne, which had been booked out well in advance of the 2006 season. But it was worth the wait.
Newgrange is a World Heritage site. The white stones surrounding the mound were gathered in Wicklow and brought to Newgrange along the coast and up the River Boyne on rafts. The mound was once surrounded by a ring of standing stones thought to number 38 but only 12 remain. It covers one acre of ground and is 280 ft in diameter and upwards of 40 ft in height. The mound was build about 3000 B.C. making it older than the pyramids and probably the oldest man-made building in the world. The passage to the central chamber in 62 ft long and is so positioned that during the Winter Solstice the sun shines up the passage and illuminates the chamber. The members of Laois Heritage Society on the outing were privileged in being allowed access to this chamber and having a guide to fill us in on its fascinating history.
The group was transported by mini-buses to a second prehistoric burial ground at Knowth. This area is still being excavated, the first excavations having taken place by Professor George Eogan in 1962. It is amazing that the whole area was left untouched over the centuries by local farmers and others. We were guided to another underground space in one of the larger mounds at Knowth which had its beginnings in the Neolithic period a later part of the Stone Age. It was populated from the Iron Age right through to the early Christian period and up to the coming of the Anglo-Normans. It was the headquarters of the Kings of Northern Bregia and, it is believed, this is why the Vikings did not settle on the Boyne but moved south to the River Liffey. Many of the large stone supporting the mound are highly decorated and, it is said, that 70% of all the megalithic rock art to found in Europe is located here at Knowth.
After lunch at the centre we traveled through the village of Slane to Mellifont and thus moved from County Meath to Louth. I found this part of the tour most interesting as it recorded the first Cistercian Abbey to be built in Ireland in 1142. Apparently Malachy O Morgair, Bishop of Down, was visiting the Pope in Rome in 1140 and went to Clairvaux in France to see St Bernard. He was so impressed by the lifestyle of the monks that he left four of his disciples with Bernard to be trained in the Cistercian life. Bernard requested Malachy to find a suitable site for a monastery and Malachy chose a site on the banks of the Mattock River, a tributary of the Boyne, a secluded spot known as Mellifont where the first abbey was established. The monks were farmers and tradesmen and were in possession of large tracts of land.
The Abbey was closed under the Henry VIII dissolution in 1539 but the ruins that remain comprise a large Lavabo unit, a virtual complete prayer room and the foundations of a large church and living area. The Cistercians returned to the village of Collon, a few miles from Mellifont, some centuries later to a place called New Mellifont and remain farming their estate there to the present day.


2007 Outing Full report