As one of the guests on RTE's broadcast from Newgrange on the morning of the winter solstice, it might be felt that I have already had too much opportunity to talk about the phenomenon itself. But, apart from the mystery of what happened inside the monument during the broadcast, there are many other aspects that deserve some comment.
As an archaeologist, one of the most heartening aspects is to see and hear the amount of public discussion and interest the programme has created. I never thought I would hear people discussing solar alignments and the design of megalithic tombs. It is fantastic that this aspect of the prehistoric past has excited so much interest.
However, in all the spins that have been put on the symbolism and meaning of the sunlight entering Newgrange at sunrise on the winter solstice, it has perhaps not been emphasised strongly enough that recognition of this event is due to archaeological research. It was 30 years ago that the late Prof Michael J. O'Kelly, the excavator of New grange, first recorded his description of the solstice event. There had been a local tradition that the rising sun used to light up the tomb, but without the discovery of the roof-box and the recognition of its purpose by Prof O'Kelly there would have been no public awareness of the solstice event.
In some of the coverage and comments there is an impression created that we do not know very much about how people lived in the Boyne Valley when Newgrange was being built. This ignores the painstaking research of archaeologists like Prof George Eogan at Knowth and M.J. and Claire O'Kelly and David Sweetman at Newgrange. Through their work, we have a detailed view of life in the period between 4,000 to 2500 BC, when early farming communities transformed the landscape.
The late Prof Frank Mitchell in a number of important contributions identified the special environmental character of the Bend of the Boyne area and the materials from which the monuments were constructed.
Now this is not meant to be a dry recitation of archaeological endeavour, but to make the point that these and other archaeologists have created the knowledge base for our interpretation of the prehistoric past of the Boyne Valley. There is a lot more that further research will tell us, such as about the land between the monuments where there may not be much trace of prehistoric activity above ground but where new information can be revealed by various survey techniques.
From this work we know that people had been visiting and living on the ridge on which Newgrange stands for several hundred years before the monument was built. Smaller monuments that had features anticipating those of Newgrange itself were constructed. When the monument was built it changed the shape of the hill and became the focus for activity that has continued on and off until the present day.
A few hundred years after its construction, access to the monument was blocked off and the ceremonial focus shifted to activity in large open-air enclosures.
What is being emphasised in the current presentation of the solstice event, however, is not so much what we can interpret about the people who built and used Newgrange in the past, but what it means for us.
The exactitude of the alignment of the monument fits in with an image of a scientific, technologically advanced, modern Ireland. The timeless, spiritual dimension of the sun light lighting the dark fulfils part of the craving for a new sense of spirituality and a connection with the past at a time when religious certitudes are being seen by many to have failed.
We have taken Newgrange out of its context of time and place to serve modern needs, to the extent that the winter solstice media photographic image has become an expected prelude to the late (very late) 20th century Christmas in Ireland. There is nothing wrong with this. After all, how we interpret the past is inevitably influenced by the present.
However, the danger is that in creating a Newgrange for the present we may fail to appreciate the importance of the past and how different the people and society who made Newgrange were to ourselves.
We know from the exchange of objects that people were in contact with other adjacent lands where similar monuments were built. But this was not some kind of prehistoric Euroland, but a world in which local and regional values held sway. Science and spirituality were not separate concerns, but both formed part of the traditions and practice of how life was lived. Time was tied to the seasons and the cycle of life and death.
The land would have been viewed as alive and permeated with the spirits of the dead and the ancestors. Our obsession with demarcating and measuring linear time and the future is precisely that, an obsession characteristic of modern industrial societies where people are at a remove from the rhythm of nature.
So we need to be aware of the need to separate present-day needs from prehistoric past realities. This is not to say that archaeologists agree on the interpretation of the past. For example, there are varying views of the social context in which Newgrange was constructed.
Anyone who wants to connect with the past does not have to go to Newgrange or see it on television to have a real sense of Ireland's historic or prehistoric past. Not just in the Boyne Valley but across the island there are a great variety of archaeological sites dating to different periods in the past.
At a time of great change in the landscape, we need to manage and conserve this resource for the future. The National Monuments Service, Duchas, is under great pressure, because of inadequate resources, to fulfil its role in monitoring and regulating the impact of development on the archaeological resource. If we are really serious about wanting to be connected to our past, then perhaps we should shift our focus from what happens at one monument for a few days each year to a better understanding of what is happening to the past around us every day.
Prof Gabriel Cooney lectures in archaeology at UCD
