April 11, 2014 Dublin Neolithic sites and Dinner at Chesterfield’s Restaurant

April 11, 2014 Dublin   Neolithic sites and Dinner at Chesterfield’s Restaurant

We slept in until about 9:00 a.m. and then by 10:00 were on the road to the Hill of Tara south of the Boyne Valley and a series of hill top Neolithic burial sites along the Boyne River.   We got lost getting out of Dublin and ended up in the small town of Kilcock, somewhere south of Tara, where we stopped to eat breakfast at 11:00 and get re-oriented.  I had a mini-breakfast with a fried egg over easy, a link sausage, a piece of patty sausage and a piece of fried ham and two slices of brown whole wheat bran bread.  After breakfast a nice man spent about ten or fifteen minutes helping explain how to navigate the small roads that led to the Hill of Tara.  There are many Neolithic sites in the area of the Hill of Tara, all about 5,000 years old, which were settled by late Stone Age peoples about 500 years before the Egyptian Culture in the Nile Valley.

The Hill of Tara was a series of royal enclosures along a hill top that has not been reconstructed, so all one sees is the remnants of the henges and walls.  It did not take long to walk the site.  There were no guides and the information center did not open until May 28, so we went on to Newgrange http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange and arrived at around 1:30, just in time to join the 1:45 tour of Knowth and the 3:15 tour of Newgrange (9.00 Euros each).

Newgrange is actually one of three large and 17 smaller chamber burial sites in the same area along the Boyne River.  There are also 20 other smaller chamber burial sites in the Boyne, but the largest complex is at Knowth that is surrounded by 17 or 18 smaller chamber burial sites. What makes Knowth and Newgrange interesting is their size (over 200,000 tons of imported material) and the orientation of the passageways that enter the chamber burial areas within the hill.  They were each built up with wood and stone so that in the end the passageways were lined with stone walls and ceilings.  Newgrange is oriented so that the rising sun of the Winter Solstice enters the passageway through a box constructed above the door of the passageway and shines a dagger of light that illuminates the deepest of three chambers that are set in the shape of a crucifix at the end of the passage about 25 meters inside the hill for a period of about 17 minutes.  Worth is even more interesting.  It is larger and has chambers on two sides of the hill, one facing the spring equinox and the other facing the fall equinox so the rising sun strikes the ends of each of its passages 2 times each year. Growth is also surrounded by 17 other chamber burial sites.  So both sites are astronomically oriented. 

barrier stone at New Grange and megalith 

internal design of New Grange

Winter solstice at New Grange (simulated) 

side wall inside New Grange burial passage

inside New Grange

Megalithic rock art at Knowth

large mound and two small burial mounds at Knowth

small burial mounds at Knowth

more small burial mounds at Knowth

small burial mound in front and big mound in back

New Grange

Entry to Burial Camber at New Grange with box above door

Megalithic art at Knowth

       The same parking area and visitor’s center serves both Knowth and Newgrange.  We went to Knowth first.  It is the most impressive site.  Although one cannot enter the chambers because the passages have not been reconstructed, like Newgrange, its hill has been reconstructed and there is a staircase to the top of the hill, which is encased in stone just like Silsbey Hill in Southern England. while the long burial chamber reminded me of the Kennett Long Barrow across the valley from Silsbey Hill. Knowth has seem many epochs of peoples including Celts, early Medieval Christians, and Vikings.  What is most impressive about Knowth is its collection of megalithic rock art.  Both hills are surrounded at the base by a row of decorated stones, but the stones at Knowth are more beautiful and better preserved, so more impressive. Here are some pictures.  Both site’s passages to the burial chambers are blocked by large decorated stones.  Of all the Neolithic sites I have seen in Europe, these are among the most interesting and on a par with Stonehenge, both of which are UNESCO World Heritage sites.  

            Knowth has been excavated but has not been reconstructed. There is also evidence of disagreement among archaeologists about architectural elements of the mounds.  For example, the white quartz pebbles that are used to adorn the entry facade at New Grange were left lying on the ground at Knowth where they fell as the mound disintegrated.  New Grange has been reconstructed to look like what the archaeologists think it looked like, but the arrangement of its chamber was not altered because the light that comes through the box above the door on the Winter solstice still hits the back of the farthest burial chamber for 17 minutes every year.  Burial Chamber is not a good term, because what was done was the people cremated their dead and brought their cremations to the burial chamber and deposited their ashes in large bowl shaped stones in the burial chambers.  

            By about 4:30 we had seen both sites and returned to the visitors’ center, where we had Irish coffees (a ½ tsp. of brown sugar and a jigger of Irish whisky in a mug of coffee with a mound of whipped cream on the top) and a pear frangipane tart to take the chill off before heading back to Dublin.  Most of the time we were touring the sites, there was a strong cold breeze.

Pear tart with Irish coffees

            We returned to the Ashling Hotel in Dublin by 6:00 and rested until 7:30 p.m. when we went down to the lobby to the hotel’s Chesterfield’s Restaurant, which has recently been awarded two rosettes for its food.   Unfortunately, the wine list is still pretty awful featuring, a short list of cheaper, less interesting wines hyped with lots of laudatory language.   But the food was first rate; the best we have had in Ireland.  We both ordered the fixe prix dinners with two courses.  My first course was a lovely salmon roulade of salmon prepared two ways; a paste of poached salmon mixed with fresh dill and a bit of mayonnaise was spread on thinly sliced sheets of gravad lax (smoked) and rolled and then sliced crosswise to make slices decorated with the swirls of salmon and laid on a lovely pile of fresh baby watercress and arugula and pickled cucumber; really fabulous and fresh, a perfect fish dish and appetizer.  Suzette ordered an equally interesting dish; a fried hen’s egg on a timbale of a mixture of grains (poached hulled barley?), herbs and mushrooms.  The fried egg was poached, then coated in a batter and then fried, so it had a soft center and a firm crust, very interesting.  Suzette loved her dish.

 

            Our entrees were solid but less interesting in conception and ad execution.  Suzette ordered a Grilled Pork Belly and Scallop dish with a ring of pureed turnip and I ordered a lamb shank, a lamb shank cooked for four hours in a mixture of tomatoes, carrots, onions, wine, broth and herbs.   I could not have done better.  We ordered a bottle of Australian Shiraz produced by Hungerford Hill, which sounds like one of those low end bulk wine producers.

            The real treat of the dinner was the Irish Farm house cheese board with a very fresh farmer’s cheese, a blue goat cheese, a brie style cheese and two kinds of cheddar cheese, one white and the other orange.  Let me say that I have never been in a country with better quality dairy products.  Everything made of dairy in Ireland is wonderful.  I doubt if one can buy a stick of margarine in the country, nor would anyone ever think to eat it and I have never had a bad cheese, which cannot be said of France that has both peaks and valleys in the dairy category.

Bon Appétit