Newgrange, The Mansion of the Boyne, probably the most impressive neolithic site in Ireland. The mound got its current appearance during its excavation and restoration between 1963 and 1975. Tractor added for scale!

Newgrange The Winter Solstice Mythology The Roofbox The Chamber Entrance Stone Kerbstone 52 Kerbstone 67 Newgrange Cursus Article by Tom Ray Roman coins found at Newgrange. The kerbstones and modern vertical quartz wall of Newgrange.

Newgrange is undoubtedly the best known megalithic monument in Ireland. Along with the other two ancient mounds, Knowth and Dowth, it stands on a low ridge over-looking the River Boyne 8 km east of the town of Drogheda. Newgrange is a chambered cairn, a 90 meter diameter heap of water-rolled stone with a ring of 97 kerbstones around the base. The mound is roughly heart shaped and probably was originaly built in the form of a truncated cone - like Maeve's Cairn, Dowth and Heapstown. There is a reconstruction drawing at the bottom of the next page. The remains of a great circle of standing stones surrounds the mound. It is estimated that if the circle was ever complete there may have been up to 36 stones. Twelve remain today, and there is some doubt as to whether the circle was complete as not all the sockets have been discovered. Newgrange from a Bord Failte postcard. Four smaller satellite mounds, two to the east and two to the west flanked Newgrange; two are buried today, the chamber of one can be seen in the field to the west of Newgrange, and the remains of Cairn Z lie just east of the cairn within the Newgrange enclosure. The missing kerbstones of Site Z have been replaced with concrete pillars. Some of the decorated stones from Cairn Z can be seen in the Passage Grave display in the National Museum in Dublin. Outside the entrance there was a 'setting', discovered during O'Kelly's excavation, and also the remains of what may have been a hut site. In the same compound as Newgrange, and encircling Site Z is the remains of a huge timber henge, approximately the same diameter as the big mound, about 90 meters. Some of the post holes from the henge have been marked with concrete stumps. A plan of Newgrange. The site was re-discovered in 1699 when the local landlord, Charles Campbell set his workers removing stones from a convienient mound on his land. By good fortune they began their excavation on the south west side and uncovered an engraved stone - the lintel of the roofbox. Soon they had uncovered the entrance stone, and for the first time since the Viking era people again entered the chamber of Newgrange. Early visitors to Newgrange. From Megalithomania by John Michell.