Winter has finally begun to die. With the arrival of solstice, darkness will commence its gradual release of the Earth. Light will slowly reassert itself over the coming weeks and months. Nature will wake. Soon we will see the first traces of new growth.
Yesterday morning, diverse pilgrims - the curious alongside the committed, some from nearby, others from abroad, working archaeologists, interested amateurs and visitors hoping to share in a mystery shaped by imagination, spirituality and science - gathered once more in the blackness of a December morning at Newgrange, Co Meath. There will be others who will maintain a vigil over the five days of the Winter solstice, but December 21st, the shortest day of the year, has become central to an enduring ritual, only with its passing of a day that is more night can hope return.
As the morning mist rises off the Boyne and eerie shadows are rendered innocent, all who have experienced the privilege of being in the chamber to witness a form of rebirth that has taken place, at times spectacularly, on other occasions, barely discernibly, feel touched by something beyond routine existence or explanation.
Whether the rising sun lights up the chamber of the great monument with its dazzling rose-gold beam of dawn brightness, or the clouds defeat her efforts, light will enter the passage. Even the chill, grey, natural light of a dull morning creeping laboriously up the passage is a cause of celebration, it too will reveal the footprints in the sand to those waiting inside.
Just as the light, be it glorious or watery, brings hope, the same might be said of the people who stand and watch - those inside the chamber or those who wait outside for news from within and are content merely to be present as a phenomenon takes place. In some ways, the division of the watchers, those inside - albeit some having waited 10 years for a ticket - and those without seem to reflect rank or status as understood in Neolithic society.
No one can doubt that this late Stone Age passage tomb, the most important archaeological monument in Ireland and certainly the most famous, as well as one of the most splendid in Western Europe, was built to honour the dead as was the custom of the Neolithic farmers who settled here and looked to the land for sustenance yet also created a symbolic structure that expressed their beliefs.
There are some 250 passage tombs or graves in Ireland, the finest of which are in Co Sligo at Carrowkeel and Carrowmore and, of course, in Co Meath. Newgrange is part of the remarkable Br· na B≤inne - the fort or town of the Boyne - complex that also includes Knowth and Dowth. It is a special place, the point where the river sweeps into a bend. Elsewhere in Co Meath is the vast cemetery of Loughcrew. The passage tombs are not only feats of engineering, they are also eloquent testaments to the sophisticated world view of the ancient society which built them. Here, some five centuries ago, lived a lofty people who honoured their dead, partook of grand ceremonies and possessed a grasp of life and death, of the natural and the spiritual world, that appears to be far beyond us, their puny descendents.
Situated in rich grazing land on the highest point of a long low, yet undulating ridge about 1,000 metres from the Boyne's north bank, Newgrange occupies a site that was clearly selected for the purpose of erecting a mighty memorial and one that would mark the winter solstice sunrise. Although the main tumulus of Knowth, which lies upstream on another ridge about 1,000 metres to the north-west, is equal in size, also claims a range of decorated stones, has two long passages, is surrounded by a far denser complex of satellite tombs and clearly suggests a far longer period of habitation, it is Newgrange that emerges as the major site.
This is because of the existence of the roof box and a deceptively simple opening under it that draws our attention to a miracle that was probably originally designed to cast light on the dead while also re-awakening the hopes of the living.
Comparable to a large letter-box, it is through this aperture that the precious shaft of light, symbol of ritual and belief as well as hope and re-birth, enters the passage way and illuminates the chamber. The history of Newgrange seems to reside in two worlds: in the story of life as lived 5,000 years ago andin more recent times, as its discovery captured the imagination of Ireland's pioneering antiquarians and continues to preoccupy generations of archaeologists as well as the millions of visitors who have made their way to the banks of the Boyne to glimpse a legacy.
In his beautiful travelogue-cum-field history, The Beauties of the Boyne and the Blackwater, published in 1849, William Wilde referred to Newgrange as: "this stupendous relic of pagan times probably one of the oldest Celtic monuments in the world, which has elicited the wonder, and called forth the admiration of all who have visited it. It has attracted visitors from every land."
Wilde writes of it with his characteristic enthusiasm but he also includes the facts. Just as we now defer to him and his extraordinary 19th-century contemporaries, Wilde wrote of an earlier antiquary, the Welsh scholar Edward Llhwyd who was keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford at the turn of the 18th century. In a letter dated Sligo, March 12th 1699, the Welsh antiquary, wrote: "I also met with one monument in this kingdom, very singular; it stands in a place called New Grange, near Drogheda, and it is a mount, or barrow, of very considerable height, encompassed with vast stones, pitched on end, round the bottom of it, and having another, lesser, standing on the top."
Among the many elements that make Wilde's account so fascinating is that he records his first visit, in 1837, at least 138 years after Llhwyd. Wilde's first impression was of utter neglect: "the entrance was greatly obscured by brambles" and he also refers to "a heap of loose stones which had ravelled out from the adjoining mound."
Newgrange, it seems, has drifted in and out of prominence a few times in its long history. Ironic, considering that such is the tourism pressure on the site, D·chas, the Heritage Service, now controls this traffic through the use of a visitor centre on the other side of the river from which visitors are transported by shuttle bus to the monument. Millions have made the odyssey, visitors such as the young German journalist Bettina Poeschel, whose imagination and interest in our culture drew her earlier this year towards this sacred place. But the appalling savagery and cowardice of others killed her - may she rest in peace.
The initial discovery of what was thought to be a cave at Newgrange in 1699 had nothing to do with scholarly research. The then landowner Charles Campbell was in need of stones for building work. Aware of the existence of the very material he required on an old mound on his farm, he asked his labourers to gather some. In doing so, the men inadvertently revealed the entrance to the tomb.
Nothing much might have happened but for the fortunate coincidence that Llhwyd was touring Ireland at the time. He was very excited, visited the site, wrote to his friends and at least four of his letters are believed to exist. There are some discrepancies. Wilde refers to "a letter of March 1699", while Michael J. O'Kelly, author of Newgrange - Archaeology, Art and Legend (London, 1982) dates the first of these letters from December 1699. Either way, the fact remains, Newgrange had been discovered some 300 years ago, and though studied by Wilde and co in the 19th century and later by Prager and ╙ Ri≤rdβin, was not meticulously excavated until O'Kelly began work in 1962.
In his book, which remains the definitive account of Newgrange, O'Kelly records the theory that surrounded the significance of the light alignment at the site. "A belief," he writes in a passage that highlights the relationship between local myth or legend and fact, "existed in the neighbourhood that the rising sun, at some unspecified time, used to light up the three-spiral stone in the end recess. No one could be found who had witnessed this but it continued to be mentioned and we assumed that some confusion existed between Newgrange and the midsummer phenomenon at Stonehenge . . . it was clear that no such comparison was valid but when we began to think about it, we realised that it might be worthwhile to investigate the winter solstice when the sun rises in that quarter. We first did so in 1967. On 21st December 1969, we recorded the following observations on tape.
"At exactly 8.54 hours GMT the top edge of the ball of sun appeared above the local horizon and at 8.58 hours, the first pencil of direct sunlight shone through the roof-box, and along the passage to reach across the tomb chamber floor as far as the front edge of the basin stone in the end recess. As the thin line of light widened to a 17 centimetre-band and swung across the chamber floor, the tomb was dramatically illuminated and various details of the side and end recesses could be clearly seen in the light reflected from the floor. At 9.09 hours, the 17 centimetre-band of light began to narrow again and at exactly 9.15 hours, the direct beam was cut off from the tomb. For 17 minutes, therefore at sunrise on the shortest day of the year, direct light can enter Newgrange, not through the doorway, but through the specially contrived slit which lies under the roof-box at the outer end of the passage roof."
The excitement of standing in that chamber is difficult to express. It is curiosity but, more powerfully, emotion that dictates responses.
Arriving in the dark, the great mound clad contentiously in ghostly white quartz looks slightly surreal. The wait outside allows the imagination to see spirits in the dark shadows. These shapes are gradually revealed by the pale, pre-dawn light to be nothing more menacing than large standing stones, resembling both chief mourners and celebrants. The sight of a pale-pink ribbon of light on the hillside across the river facing the monument brings hope. It is as if the bare trees lining the facing ridge are supplicants, also praying for the elusive light.
Inside the tomb, the 19-metre-long passage constructed of large upright Orthostats - many of which are decorated - there is a subtle gradual rise up towards the chamber. It is easy to miss this as most visitors have to bend their heads.
Once in the chamber, the magnificent corbelled ceiling rises dramatically above our heads. Watchers make nervous conversation as we wait. Everyone is willing the sun to shine. Some people offer a commentary. The information is always interesting such as descriptions of previous solstice vigils. Jokes seem funnier than they actually are. Stomachs rumble in protest at the early hour.
The shared goodwill of people experiencing a privilege is palpable. Yet you also wish for silence as the footprints made only minutes before assume an historic relevance as evidence of the centuries past. The golden light, if it comes up along the sloping floor, is inspiring - too private for television cameras, as was proved. Your quest is completed and you know no one can see your tears as they're too busy hiding their own. The light departs, slowly like a whisper.
One year, as we came out into the morning, a small white-faced boy asked "are there any dead bodies inside?" No bodies, but yes, there are many spirits. The ancestors who understood the power of the seasons and the glories of the sky continue to preside over a formidable, enduring achievement.