The purpose of the Newgrange passage tomb, although probably the most amazing Neolithic construction in Western Europe, is completely unknown. Even its presumed purpose as a tomb is guesswork, based on the fact that the cremated remains of about five individuals have been found there.
But it is an extraordinary edifice, which may have taken about three generations of its builders to construct, given the fact that our ancestors of the time mostly died in their 20s and 30s.
The mound around the tomb is man made, and very complex in construction. The exhibition in the Bru na Boinne Visitor Centre offers an excellent graphic description of how it might have been done, along with information about the life and times of the community which built it. Though even that is admitted guesswork.
The exterior is dramatic, and at first sight the white quartz frontage looks modern. But in fact the stone facing, although rebuilt by the excavating archaeologist Brian Kelly and his wife Claire in the 1960s, is as the originators did the job some five millennia ago.
The entrance has been redesigned somewhat to make it more accessible to the 800 or so visitors who are brought through the monument each day it is open.
Newgrange is less than an hour from Dublin city centre. Have you been? You should, you know.
