A new book claims that the 5,000- year-old prehistoric Newgrange monument is not a burial tomb and its classification as a "passage-grave" misinterprets the intention of its creators.
The challenge is made in the book Newgrange - Temple to Life by Cork-based author Chris O'Callaghan.
Designated a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1993, Newgrange is regarded as one of the most advanced Neolithic constructions designed and built to manage the rays of the sun.
Since its rediscovery in the 17th century, the monument has been classified as a burial chamber. However Mr O'Callaghan says there is no evidence that Newgrange had been used as a catacomb, a mortuary, a necropolis or a crematorium.
"My message to the people of Ireland is that the amazing site of Newgrange has nothing whatsoever to do with death," Mr O'Callaghan said yesterday. "It's much more positive than that. It's about fertility and life.
"Despite the assumptions, there is not the faintest evidence that Newgrange had ever been used as any sort of dedicated repository for bodies, bones, burial artefacts or ash."
"At no time have reports, or even later excavations, shown that there were any signs of the purposeful storage of human bones and ash within the Newgrange monument," he added.
"As far as the passage grave classification is concerned, there is no hint that the pieces of fragmented bone, discovered mixed with the sand and grit on the floor of the monument, can be even remotely linked to sacrifice or burial activities."
According to the South African-born writer, who moved to Ireland in 1999 and who spent two years researching the book, the true meaning of Newgrange is far simpler.
"Following visits to the monument and reading the official description," Mr O'Callaghan said, "it hit me that a straightforward explanation using in-view evidence on site and based on the likely needs of the ancient farmers, would far better fit the facts."
Mr O'Callaghan, who lives in north Cork, insists the Neolithic monument represents fertility and life on the basis that the site is designed to represent the ovaries and womb of the earth.
"Newgrange is a very spiritual place," he said.
"I believe the people of that time designed the monument to allow the sun through the roof box to symbolically fertilise seeds and roots placed in the stone basins in the alcoves. As such, I believe it is a marriage of the Sun God with the Mother Earth."