Eileen Battersby marked the winter solstice by waiting within Newgrange burial chamber for daylight to enter, if not the sun itself
True, the weather man had ruled out the chances of a rose-gold sunrise for Saturday. But undeterred solstice watchers still gathered at the majestic Stone Age burial mound at Newgrange, Co Meath, at the weekend to celebrate the ending of the longest night of the year.
It is an event at which nature, science, spirituality and mystery are all brilliantly choreographed thanks to a legacy bestowed by Neolithic man.
Mist lifted high over the Boyne and the graceful Meath landscape to disperse into a sky that remained stoically grey. As the darkness began to yield to day, the standing stones that flank the great mound like vigilant sentries emerged as subtle, if forceful, presences.
All of those gathered for the vigil agreed they would willingly exchange the mild, damp conditions for the cold, sharp frosty chill that usually, if not always, guarantees the golden thread of light poised to illuminate the chamber. The sun enters the tomb by passing through the roof box above the entrance to the passage.
In theory, and often in practice, this is the wonder that awaits those fortunate enough to gain access during the mid-winter solstice. The best that Saturday offered was a muted awakening, marking the beginning of winter's slow decline.
This did not seem to disappoint the British ambassador, Sir Ivor Roberts, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth, both of whom had visited the site before, and are interested in archaeology. Sharp sun or not, to be present within the tomb itself at solstice is both privilege and adventure.
Standing in the darkness below the magnificent corbelled ceiling of the chamber, a small party of pilgrims waited for the light, if not the sun itself.
Before the grey morning light came the Minister of State, Noel Ahern, who raced up the passage, eager not to miss the ceremonial. As always the conversation among the waiting watchers is a mixture of the serious and the comic.
David Sweetman, chief archaeologist with Dúchas, the Heritage Service, demonstrated a ready flair for one-liners while also describing the landscape as it would have been when the Stone Age farmers who built the great passage tombs of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth lived in the valley.
An estimated 200,000 tonnes of stone was used and, as Mr Sweetman pointed out, this called for "quite a workforce" and a workforce that needed to be fed. Thus much of the ancient tree cover would have been first cleared by these Stone Age farmer/tomb-builders.
Among the visitors to Newgrange this solstice were the daughters of archaeologist M.J.O'Kelly who excavated the tomb between 1962 and 1975. It was Prof O'Kelly who investigated and confirmed the alignment of the roof-box with the midwinter sunrise.
Yet science and fact always benefit from an element of myth and magic, and Dúchas guide Clare Tuffy, who could be seen as the chief keeper of the site, duly introduced that when mentioning Yeats. She referred to the poet's attempt to invoke Dagda or Daghda, the chief god of the Irish who, as legends suggest, saw the site as a worthy tomb for him and his sons.
Yeats hoped to evoke the spirit of Dagda during a séance. Maud Gonne was invited, but declined in a note to Yeats dated June 1898. Long before the archaeologists confirmed it, the mystic, pioneering New Ager and writer George Russell (AE) was aware of the solstice sunrise wonders at Newgrange, as evident from his A Dream of Aengus Oge (1897).
Wonders aside though, how do the ancients, who planned their landscape and heritage legacy so deliberately, regard the bumbling contributions of us, their puny descendants, with the incinerator proposed for outside Duleek still poised to implode upon the Boyne Valley?
Elaine Keogh adds: Around 50 people gathered at Newgrange as dawn broke on Saturday to protest against plans by Indaver Ireland to locate a waste management facility, that includes an incinerator, at Carranstown, about four miles from Newgrange. The planning application is currently with An Bord Pleanála.