Some of what Laura and I had wanted to see was the old sites, those ancient ruins that were beyond the ancient monasteries or whatever. There’s plenty of prehistoric locations and artifacts in Ireland, and this day we traveled south a bit to see some.
On the way we stopped at Coleraine to see Mount Sandel, a prehistoric fort. It’s now just a massive hill and archaeological site, but you can see where a structure of some sort once stood. This would serve as a great introduction to some of the stuff we would later see on this excursion.
Further on south is a region that has several great sites, so we decided this was where we were going to be. After stopping off at the visitor’s center and getting a map, we were off.
Previously I had mentioned how the lack of signage was frustrating when trying to find something. Turns out, even having a map does not mean you can find what you are looking for.
Go 500 meters. Turn left on an unmarked road. Turn right and what you’re looking for is on the left in a field.
Those were some of the better directions we had.
It took a while, but we found a wedge tomb. In the middle of a field.
Thankfully we sort of knew what we were looking for, but we didn’t necessarily expect to find a tree growing out of the top. Nor did we expect it to be in a field that was (apparently regularly) mowed. Still, a very cool find.
Then it was to an Ogham Stone, and this one was at least somewhat marked with a couple of signs along the way so it was much easier to find.
Ogham is a sort of ancient alphabet, with this stone saying DOTETTO MAQI MAGLANI which roughly translates to… well, I don’t know. There aren’t that many of these still around, so it was impressive to find one this intact.
If you go to Dublin, and the Book Of Kells exhibit at Trinity College there’s a portion of it that goes into what these stones are and the Ogham alphabet. It’s well worth spending the extra time when visiting the Book Of Kells to learn a little bit about this.
Finally the last place we went to was to the Beaghmore Stone Circles. The reason this was our final stop was due to the amount of time spent looking for everything, and we still had a bit of a trek back to our home base.
The stone circles present a number of theories as to their function, but the bottom line is this site is as old or possibly a couple hundred years older than Stonehenge. There are a number of different circles, some arranged in different ways, others just… circles. One of the stone circles is curious in that it is filled with other rocks.
If you are into history at all, Ireland had plenty to offer. A wide range of eras present a great variety of locations and objects, and in a wonderfully family friendly atmosphere.
And just because this was cute, here’s a picture of Xavier at Beaghamore doing “Ring Around The Rosie” to himself. And every time he fell down, he fell down hard. But he kept getting up and running around in the circle really fast to do it again.