May 2, 2024 Dublin - Boyne Valley Tour

It was an early start today to get to the Molly Malone statue for 7:50 a.m. Fortunately the hotel breakfast buffet opened at 6:30 a.m. At 6 a.m. this morning it was cloudy, 8°C and west 19 km/h wind. There was a good selection of cereals, juices, yogurt, dry cereals, breads, croissants, sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, baked beans and an expresso cappuccino maker.

In less than 20 minutes from the hotel we were waiting at the Molly Malone statue. The driver guide, Alec, arrived on schedule and escorted the six of us to the 29 passenger bus around the corner. He checked us in then returned to the statue to see if any more people had arrived. Alec came back with three more and we had our tour members. We had accumulated 2,429 steps.

We drove along Dame Street and then across the River Liffey into Phoenix Park, which was once private and used for hunting. The rich owners imported deer which are not native to Ireland. Although the Irish speak of the Irish language, it is Gaelic. There is a statue of the Duke of Wellington along the park roadway. He defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. He lived most of his adult life in London, but was born in Ireland. There are two residences in the park. One is the President of Ireland’s official residence while the other property is the American Embassy. Over 150 year ago there were other houses in Phoenix Park, one owner was Mr. Guinness, who owned Guinness Brewery. He got tired of walking to work along the dirt track and paid to have a cobblestone path constructed, which later was paved and made into the current road. During the first weekend of September the park is closed and becomes home to car races. Thousands of bales of hay are brought to the park to make side walls to contain any crashes. Unleaded gasoline costs €1.859 per litre.

We drove out of Dublin northwest into the Boyne Valley toward Meath county. Before the Romans arrived in Ireland the country was mainly forest and difficult to navigate. When the Romans reached the western shore and saw the endless Atlantic Ocean they decided that they had found the end of the world.

The first destination is the Hill of Tara dating back to the Iron Age. On the top plateau is the Stone of Destiny or Coronation Stone. All of the Hill of Tara is surrounded by two rows of forrad or barrows. Today, walking in the damp 15 cm high grass up and down the barrows was slippery. The nine of us in the group walked carefully. Besides being a 5,000 year old holy location, it was the home of ancient Ireland’s high monarchs where important meetings were held. Had a misty fog not settled in the area, we might have seen more of the green Irish hills surrounding it.

The first statue seen from the car park is that of St. Patrick. He was captured from his father’s land in Wales while watching his father’s sheep, during an Irish raid. He became a slave at 16 years old. Wales had domestic animals, copper and people that would be useful to the Irish raiders. One of the places that the slaves were kept was the hollow Mound of Hostages. St. Patrick’s life consisted of caring for the pigs and also living and eating with the pigs for many years until a vision showed the way to escape to France, which he did. In France he became a priest and eventually made his way back to his father’s land in Wales. While there he had another vision that the people of Ireland wanted him to come and convert them to Christianity. He decided to go back to the place where he had been a slave, but first wanted to ask the king’s permission. He had a plan.The tradition was that if the king did not light a fire, which he did for important meetings, then no one else could have a fire. St. Patrick lit a fire on a neighbouring hill to Tara and warriors were sent over. He got his audience with the king, who gave his permission for St. Patrick to practice Christianity in the region.

The interior of the Mound of Hostages is constructed in the same way that the Egyptian pyramids, built 2,000 years later, are designed. The theory is that some Irish travellers met important Egyptians during the next few millennia and taught them the techniques of the interior construction. Only at the Spring and Autumn equinoxes does the sun shine into the entrance of mound and illuminates it. There was a Faery Tree on the hill. People tie something to the tree (usually a ribbon) make a wish and walk away and they must not look back for their wish to come true. They are found all over Ireland.

Back into the bus our step count was 4,711.

It was a short ride to Trim and its castle ruins. It was the location of the largest Anglo-Norman fortress in Ireland. Trim castle, which was built in the 12th century, was used as the castle in the 1994 movie Braveheart starring Mel Gibson. The movie company signed an agreement with the town that any renovations they made would be removed after filming. The renovations cost £22 million and the removal cost £8 million. Trim Castle’s original design had a moat around the three story keep and a moat around the castle walls. It was built close to the nearby Boyne River. We entered Trim Castle Gate via a causeway where originally a drawbridge over the moat had been. Inside the castle walls Alec explained to us the Oliver Cromwell managed to capture the fortress, but was astonished when he and his warriors entered the grounds, there were no people anywhere. Eventually he noticed people waving to them on a nearby hill. Tunnels had been built into the design. They were dug under the river for just this situation. When Cromwell’s troops found the tunnels and entered the locals pulled the sluice gates and flooded the tunnels killing the enemy. Across the road from the castle was the relatively new St. Patrick’s church whose foundation was laid in 1891.

Next was the drive to Loughcrew Megalithic Cairns. On the way Alec mentioned the mid 1800s Irish Potato Famine. Which in modern times records have shown that there was a potato blight in the potato crops of the English landlords. The English landlords were afraid that their other crops would be affected and had them harvested and transported to ports where the crops that could have fed the people rotted on the piers.

We passed through the town of Athboy, which started the Hallowe’en tradition. About 2,000 years ago, on an evening before All Saints Day, November 1, the town’s people lit fires on the ancient Hill of Tlachtga and the Samhain Fire Festival began, celebrating harvest and the coming of winter. It also was to help good spirits rise to the heavens on All Saints Day, although it was a pagan ritual. The Celtic ancestors also made wooden masks to wear and made costumes to wear and stuffed them with straw. Thus the tradition of wearing costumes for Hallowe’en was born. The Irish have taken this tradition all around the world to the countries to where they immigrated.

Next we arrived at Loughcrew Megalithic Cairns, which are over 5,000 years old. These are located in the highest hills of County Meade, with a view, on a clear day that you could see over half of Ireland. This was not one of those days, the light fog had returned. From the carpark, the group walked 500 meters to the staircase of 54 steps onto a crushed rock path of another 60 meters then into a field of grazing sheep, that ignored us. The grass was short and mainly dry as we followed the steep incline up the hill going from an altitude of 27 meters to 305 meters according to my GPS reading. The distance to the top was about half a kilometre, a pair of walking sticks, like Alec had, would have made it a little easier to climb. There are 13 lesser cairns surrounding the large one.

Alec explained the burial rituals of two barrier stones to step over just inside the entrance, and after each step over the stone, some ashes of the person were scattered. Then the rest of the ashes were placed further inside the cairn then it was covered and sealed. Along the northern perimeter of the cairn is the Hag’s Chair. The stone is shaped somewhat like an upholstered chair. The face of the stone is decorated with numerous cup-marks and circle motifs. He also mentioned that inside the largest Neolithic passage tomb is rock art covering the walls. Until COVID restrictions anyone could go inside. Since COVID authorities have decided that the cairn is structurally unsound, but the public has not seen any engineering reports to proof the statement. Alec has been inside hundreds of times with tours prior to COVID. This largest cairn which archeologists believe to be for a high priest or king has the same design of two large stones at the entrance that need to be stepped over to enter the tomb of the important person, just like in the cairns of lesser graves. This mound was covered in white quartz that was quarried in County Wicklow and transported here somehow. The original height was about double since the stones have been used in other building projects over thousands of years. Using white quartz on the highest hill, the cairn was meant to be seen over great distance. By the car park at the Loughcrew Megalithic Centre, is a campground office and gift shop that open later in May. The building are arranged around a courtyard and have thatched roofs.

It was after 1p.m. and the next stop was in Castlepollard. The step count was 9,683. At the Castle Varagh Hotel restaurant, a table had been reserved for the group. We ordered from the menu. The fog had disappeared during lunch. There was time for a short walk to the nearby St. Michael’s Church.

The final stop was in Fore. The name comes from Fobher which means well or spring. Here we walked among the ruins of Fore Abbey which was built in the 13th century as a Benedictine Priory with additions in the 15th century. St. Féichin founded the original church in the mid seventh century. Walter de Lacy funded the building of the monastery. The same person who built Trim Castle. The monastery was a dependant of St. Taurine’s monastery at Evreux in Normandy, so when the English were at war with France, several times during the centuries the monastery was taken over by the English. There was a central courtyard inside the thick limestone walls. On the map there was a label for a short circular tower called a Columbarium. We had seen the same thing last week on the grounds of Athelhampton House and Gardens and an employee said it was used for pigeons. There was an explanation here saying that it was for pigeons here as well and we had seen the same “pigeon holes” hollow into the walls of the ruin. The pigeons were used as food for the monks. The ruins were very peaceful. The clouds were thinner and the temperature was about 16°C.

Across the road from the Abbey was the 12th century St. Féichin’s Church ruins and the hermit or anchorite cell.

It was a short half kilometre walk into the village of Fore where we stopped at the Fore Abbey Coffee Shop for cappuccinos.

All nine of us were waiting for Alec to pick us up at 4 p.m. for the 100 kilometre drive back to Dublin. Since it was mainly on the motorway, I was able to start composing the blog during the ride.

Alec mentioned that any of the restaurants in the area near Molly Malone, but not in Temple bar, had good food at reasonable prices. We walked over to Trinity College just to get a glimpse of the common. Then walked back to the area that Alec had mentioned and went into the Bankers Bar on Trinity Street for dinner enjoying a Smithwicks Irish red ale and Irish coffee before the meals - Oak smoked Salmon and salad and Beef and Guinness pie. The pub was bustling. The price was reasonable. It was just a 20 minute walk back to the hotel.

Today we walked over ten kilometres in fits and starts and accumulated 18,350 steps.