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Finally the opportunity arose. A sudden business trip was taking me to Italy and my sponsors were happy to fly me back to New Zealand via Ireland. There it was, five days of allotted time to explore Irish mysteries with nothing to do and no one to visit. I was going to be free to follow my nose and go wherever my intuition took me. A few days before the flight out of New Zealand I had a mild panic – what was I doing going to Ireland? I was arriving late at night, had no accommodation arranged, didn’t know anyone there and the only thing I had booked was a car! What was this stupid idea I was following? The next day a newspaper editor rang to check the spelling on a story I’d written about inspirational Brazilian author Paulo Coelho (who wrote The Alchemist) some time before. The correct version of the word she wanted checked: pilgrimage. Suddenly I knew it was all going to be okay. Some kind of circle was closing – the pilgrimage on my whiteboard of all that time before and this pilgrimage of now had met. I was off. My exploration of Irish mysteries had begun. I arrived in Dublin late at night and ended up spending a small fortune on a night in a luxury hotel near the airport. I awoke the next morning and, while packing ready to leave, switched on the television. For the next hour I was transfixed as I watched a program on megalithic stone sites, pilgrimage and rituals in the Americas. Something was happening to me, something I didn’t fully understand. This journey was about intuition and excitement and soon I was in my small rental car heading down unknown roads into an unknown future and the call of Irish mysteries. My first stop was Newgrange. For so long I’d seen the images – spiral carvings marked upon ancient stone, inner labyrinths and a passageway into the megalithic tomb. The fact that I was now here made every part of my body tingle with excitement. Newgrange lies in the Boyne Valley, famous for its three megalithic sites – Knowth, Dowth and Newgrange. Newgrange is understood to have been built around 2500BC, but the totality of its past lies in an unsolved mystery. What is known about Newgrange is that each year on December 21 the rays of the rising sun reach the entranceway to the long passage and travel to the centre of the edifice. Newgrange is a huge presence with a façade of quartz and granite, almost 90 meters in diameter and 11 meters in height covering almost an acre of land that, during my visit, was semi-shrouded in mist and cold. Here was a strong resonance with all those sites of archeoastronomical significance around the globe – stone structures seemingly constructed to work in harmony with the movement of the sun and stars such as the structures I’d already experienced with the Anasazi people of Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde in America (to read more about the Anasazi click here) It was a cold day as the tour guide showed us deep into the heart of the edifice where a small circular opening lay at the end of a long thin passage. He spoke about Newgrange purely as some kind of ancient burial site, but this didn’t see to be the whole picture to me. It was here, at Newgrange, that I began to experience a feeling which haunted me for the remainder of my time in Ireland. Each time I was drawn to a stone site I had the distinct impression of being `held’ until I’d seen and touched all that I needed to. Even though I’d sometimes want to keep to my self-imposed schedule, I felt as though I couldn’t leave until some kind of magnetic pull at the site weakened and I was released. Finally, photos taken, stone touched and warmed by tea in the site coffee shop, I was back in the car and off. Next on my agenda was Mellifont Abbey in County Louth. I’d been dawn here because of my interest in the Cistercians – an order that developed from the Benedictines in the late 11th century France. The group followed a communal life of prayer and manual work and built their abbeys in remote places across Europe. Mellifont is the first Cistercian house of Ireland and was founded by the celebrated St Malachy in 1142. Today the expansive remains are a peaceful place to wander through and another close connection to Irish mysteries.
The following day I was up and off to another place of fascination, the Hill of Tara. Again, the day was shrouded in mist and I was completely alone as I pushed open the little iron gate and scaled the hill to the site. The Hill of Tara is where the High Kings of Ireland once resided in palaces which crowned the hill. It is also home to Lia Fail, the Stone of Destiny, the place where these High Kings were once crowned (the stone said to roar when the rightful king sat upon it). Today all that remains is a huge open expansive of earthworks and the odd stone. Wandering alone in the mist among the ancient ruins it was easy to feel the history … ancient legends of heroic deeds and the enchanted Tuatha de Danaan, the little people of divine origin said to have been driven underground to inhabit thousands of earthworks scattered around Ireland – perhaps even a link to our own Patupaiarehe, the fairy people of the forest in Maori legend in New Zealand. In a nearby teashop I had a great conversation with the owner. Michael laughed as he spoke of the oddities that take place at the modern Hill of Tara, “strange new age rituals and ceremonies” he said, “people expecting to see UFOs and the like,” but then quickly became engrossed as the conversation turned to ancient stones and archaeoastronomy links. Michael pulled a number of books on Irish mysteries off a shelf for me to look at and then spoke of another site I must visit, the Hill of Witches, a place not often accessed by visitors. Following his lead I set off driving down small country lanes to seek out a country home for a key to open a gate at the site. I was soon back climbing over earthworks, scaling a hill in the middle of nowhere with no one else in sight. This was a more broody place I observed as I walked a circle around the site, examining all the stones. Day three took me to Northern Ireland at a destination that had called me from half a world away – Lough Derg. I drove to the site with great anticipation. What was it about this place? Why here? Why now? I arrived mid-morning and laughed at the absurdity of it all. Here across the grey lake on an equally grey day through the light rain sat St Patrick’s Purgatory, a hunkered down grey edifice of various buildings, probably one of the foremost Catholic pilgrimage sights in the world. It felt tight, full of stricture, incredibly Catholic and appeared to have little interest or relevance to my own life. Admittedly though, its history is fascinating. St Patrick’s Purgatory was one of the principal landmarks on the medieval maps for Ireland. It is a place that has drawn pilgrims from all part of Europe since the 12th century with some of the earliest commentaries on it coming form knights and roving monks. Ancient legend links the lake’s name – Dearg, meaning red – as deriving from the blood of the last great serpent which Patrick slew here. Others say the cave at the location was the final showdown between St Patrick and the druids. Today some 20,000 pilgrims come to the site every year between June 1 and August 15 for a three-day programme of penance and prayer as they walk around the stations on the island, often bare foot and fasting. I clambered down to the lake and splashed water on my forehead. Perhaps there was something here for me that I just didn’t see or understand. Maybe I was rekindling a new level of my own hope or atoning for past sins, or maybe there was some old link through my own Scottish surname which I’d read was said to mean `Patrick’s son’. One thing was clear though, I could see that I’d followed some kind of straight line from Newgrange, through the Hill of Witches, right up to Lough Derg. The mission completed I was off to Sligo and more specifically Carrowmore, Ireland’s largest megalithic site which recent evidence has shown is older than the great Egyptian pyramids. Again I was out in the fields for hours examining and touching old stone dolmens and ruins believed to be constructed 7400 years ago. I sat riveted for 20 minutes when a guide who worked at the site – another Michael – spoke of the magic and mystery of Ireland. He told of ancient goddesses, of ley lines that linked Ireland to Europe and even Egypt, of stone sites that littered Europe and the electrical frequency of Newgrange which he saw not just as a burial site, but a place where he sun god each year entered Newgrange to penetrate the earth goddess. Now that did make sense. He spoke also of the massive mountain Knocknarea clearly visible in the distance, a place said to be the final resting place of the famed Queen Maeve. I jotted notes as he spoke and then wrote `The Quest’ and circled it. Maybe this was what I was on. I wanted to get to Clifden by nightfall, so before long it was time to leave. Pulling out of Sligo I saw signs for Coney Island – as mentioned in the song by Van Morrison whose music had been accompanying my trip. The journey took me through the colourful town of Westport and then deep into the bronzed and bracken Connemara hills which contain the bare bog hills of the Twelve Bens and numerous lakes. Recent newspaper reports have shown Connemara are full of Irish mysteries holding eight specific stone alignments dating from about 1500 BC, an area so important it is now considered the “sacred hills of Connemara”. Many of the stones are of quartz and have been constructed to align with the sun setting on the shortest day of the year. New sites are continually being discovered in the area. Connemara is also the only place in Ireland where greenstone – like New Zealand’s own pounamu – is found and my journey skirted me past the foothills of Croag Patrick, a mountain that is another place of annual pilgrimage in the land. The following day and my mission was a special site in Count Offaly. However, first there was enough time for a scoot through the gorgeous village of Cong which is littered with megalithic stone sites and circles and home to the spectacular Ashford Castle (it is also where the famous film The Quiet Man was shot). Yet another stone circle to traverse, touch and photograph. Later that day and I was at Clonmacnoise in County Offaly. Situated on the banks of the Shannon, this spectacular site is the monastic remains and the ancient burial place of Kings of Tara. Founded by St Kieran in 548AD, it was once one of the most important artistic and cultural centres in Ireland with a small city, six churches and two round towers. I spent hours entranced – not just at the outdoor site, but also at the remarkable display centre filled with stones, stories of the history of Ireland and the Vikings, explaining the myth and ritual that makes up this land. One final day before flying out and after a night in Tralee, I decided to make it a touristy day on the Dingle Peninsula, jutting outcrops of cliffs, crashing water and hedge-roomed country lanes. A day to just cut loose and forget about my pilgrimage, ley lines and stones. It turned out to be my strangest day in Ireland.
It had been an incredible few days. I had learned how to work in synch with intuition and follow its lead, developed a sense that the next place I had to visit was Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula, and had realised that in my own life I could have more – both a home of my own and this life of travel. My first conversation back in New Zealand was with my friend Gary Cook was about Irish mysteries and my strange final day ending at St Brendan’s Cove with its story about ancient monks and sea voyages. His interest was immediate as he told me about a recent visitor to New Zealand who had spoken about a supposed link of Irish monks sailing to our own land in times long forgotten. Weeks later, whilst visiting friends for dinner, a book fell off their shelf - it told the story of a group of modern Irish adventurers who followed ancient sea voyages of those early monks. These were incredible journeys that took them to Iceland and beyond, not dissimilar to the sea journeys of the Waitaha of our own land. The books name? St Brendan’s Voyage. The following year I made a journey to another land, Denmark, home of the Vikings. On my first night in Copenhagen I pulled open the fridge of the minibar in my hotel room and there, sitting innocuously on the shelf was a Bailey’s type liqueur that I’d never seen before. It’s name? St Brendan's Irish Liqueur. And
so if Ireland taught me anything it was this: that we should remember
that we are all part of something so vast that it encompasses all
of us – and that we are connected to each other and the mystery
of this universe in ways that we don’t yet fully understand. Go back to Adventure and Mysteries |
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I’d written it up on my whiteboard
at least a year before and jotted down the word `pilgrimage’
underneath it. The prompting had come when twice within 24 hours
two different people had handed me pieces of paper with information
about Ireland’s Lough Derg on it.
My final stop for the day was at Monasterboice (also
in County Louth) – another mist shrouded ancient site. Here
stands two of the most well known high crosses in Ireland, dating
back to the 9th or 10th century. Monasterboice was filled with mood
with huge crow-like birds cawing and circling over a partially crumbled
round tower raised skywards. These ancient round towers were built
as a form of protection – especially from the marauding Vikings
that once plundered the land.
The Peninsula held me as I followed the signs from
one stone site to another, ancient ogham stones (stones cut with
the ancient ogham alphabet), reconstructed stone dwellings, a ruined
church with a primitive stone sundial in its forecourt. I wanted
to go, but still the land held me. Finally I was at St Brendan’s
Cove, a rocky chasm at the end of the Dingle Peninsula where a deep
groove in the land leads down to a bay where a group of monks set
sail in ancient times for the new world. A final photograph, the
roll of film finished, the energy lessened and I was free to go.
Back to rain-soaked Dublin and a flight home with the spirit of
Ireland pounding through my blood. |