At college, the composer Michael Holohan's subjects included archaeology and classical studies as well as music. So, when he moved to Drogheda, Co Louth in 1983, his archaeological bent naturally drew him to the historical connections of the Boyne Valley. He worked as a guide in Newgrange and in 1986 experienced the winter solstice there.
"It was an incredible experience. It's something that lasts about 15 minutes. When light rises on the hill it comes through the roof box and it sort of snakes its way up the passage. The first thing I noticed was the sense of silence of people, of awe as the light comes in. It's very golden, it would remind you of the death mask of Tutankhamun, that kind of colour. I suppose once I'd experienced that, I was kind of hooked."
He was at the time due to write a choral piece for the wedding of a friend, and the Newgrange experience poured into what became Spalpann An Ghrian. But not all of the pieces which followed are about the solstice. "One of them is actually called Solstice, all right, there's another new choral work called Newgrange, another called Dowth. Basically they're settings of poems by John F. Deane and Susan Connolly. I was looking for texts written by poets from the area who had a knowledge of the area. I suppose the pieces have come out of not just Newgrange, but Knowth and Dowth, and what's very important is the whole surrounding landscape, because it's all very much a ritual landscape or an archaeological landscape."
The pieces, he says - the evocative use of Bronze Age horns, notwithstanding - are not intended as programme music. They're not depictions of the places, but rather "about the feeling, about being in the landscape. Some of the works do have titles and specific texts, but other works like Ancient Land, for two pianos and percussion, that's based on a painting of Nano Reid, who painted in that area, and Macehead is based on the ritual object which was found in the passage at Knowth."
Since his move from Dublin to Drogheda, Holohan has been writing music which he describes as tonal. He has the feeling in his most recent pieces that something is coming to a close, that the flavour of primitivism that has been disclosed may, as he puts it, like a palimpsest, be pointing him in a new direction.
Michael Holohan's Winter Solstice Concert, A Beam of Light, is at the Droichead Arts Centre in Drogheda, Co Louth at 1 p.m. today, and the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery in Dublin at noon tomorrow. Admission is free.
