Archaeoastronomy at megalithic sites

Did you witness anything interesting over the solstice period Bawn?
I have news in relation to the possible Winter solstice sunrise at the site of the Curragh linear earthwork(re. my post #92,July 2014).It didn't work out as anticipated,but was not disappointing either.I'll endeavour to post some pics over the next couple of days if I get a chance.

mythicalireland wrote: »

I've been reading this thread and I have to say it's absolutely fascinating. You guys are doing some fantastic work. The photos with labels and arrows, plus the Google Earth images, help enormously to understand what you are talking about. So thank you.

Bonedigger - I wonder if I could trouble you to look at something for me relating to The Curragh involving another alignment? I can PM/email you if possible.

PM sent.

Hi Bawn,
I'm hoping to get out and about myself next week. Here's hoping the weather's good?!! Through my own investigations there's a possibility that the summer solstice sun may have been observed to descend behind the summit of Red Hill, Co.Kildare, as one looked on from the site of St.Brigid's cathedral in Kildare town. There's a trivallate ring-barrow on the summit of Red Hill and it's just possible the sun is seen to descend directly behind this, but that's just a guess. Unfortunately it won't be possible to observe this from the site of the cathedral itself because the view of the hill's summit is now obscured by trees. I have found an area just outside the town which falls along this solstice alignment, and which is at the same elevation, so I'm hoping I get a rough idea what this solstice sunset may have looked like (the area in question is a good bit closer to Red Hill, so am not sure if this is going to work in reality).
This solstice observation may have been one of the reasons why this site was held sacred prior to the establishment of St.Brigid's monastic settlement there circa 470 A.D. It was believed to have been the site of a pagan fire temple, where a perpetual flame was kept alight by a coven of priestesses.
I'm hoping to discuss this in a future post (that is when I get my act together!).

At the end of post #124 above, I suggested it may have been possible to see the summer solstice sun descend behind the hill of Dunmurry as one stood at what I believed was the NW-facing end of a prehistoric linear feature on Long Hill; well it's been a long wait but here's what I photographed this evening while out on the Curragh:



I was unable to photograph this sunset from the area where I believed the NW end of this linear was situated because it's in the Curragh camp and the view of Dunmurry hill is now obscured by both buildings and trees. I found a spot along the same alignment some 4 kilometres from the summit of Dunmurry. I didn't have high hopes that I'd get a glimpse of the sunset because the sky was cloud covered for much of the evening, but as luck would have it, there was a slight break in the clouds just in the right place at the right moment. Despite it being two days after the official summer solstice, the azimuth of the setting sun has changed little (from 313.1 degrees to 313 degrees), so what you're seeing above is what it would have looked like then. It's difficult to tell the exact position of the sun behind the hill but I think it's certainly close enough to be of significance.
There's debate whether the linear feature that was recorded on Long Hill was a prehistoric structure at all, but I think it strange that one can see a winter solstice sun rise up from the summit of Slievemaan when standing at the upper SE-facing end of the linear, and that at its lower NW-facing end, one can see a summer solstice sun descend behind Dunmurry Hill.
I'm still working on a post in relation to another summer solstice sunset observation, so hope to be back within the next couple of days with that.

How does the image look now Bawn?
I had it in 'Private' viewing mode for some bizarre reason!

bawn79 wrote: »

Fixed now Bonedigger - great picture. Its a pity you can't see it from the original position. There looks to be a little dip on Dunmurray hill. It would be nice if the sun set right into the dip.

Thanks Bawn!
The skies look a little clearer this evening so I'm going to pop back out there to see if I can get a better shot. Yeah, I did notice that curious-looking dip close to the summit. Where I'm observing the sunset from is at a lower elevation than it would be at the correct spot on Long Hill, so maybe it was seen to set within that 'dip' from the higher elevation of Long Hill?
If I get a better shot tonight, I'll post it later.

Edit: Here's a shot of the sunset from this evening.
Unfortunately the clouds started rolling in and this is as good as it got. It would appear that it's going to set somewhere very close to that dip in the summit. When looking on from the higher elevation of Long Hill, maybe that's exactly what it does?

The image below was taken by me on the 19th of December, 2014, two days before the official winter solstice. What you're seeing is the sun descend behind St.Brigid's cathedral in Kildare town:



St.Brigid's cathedral was built on the site of one of Ireland's most important early medieval monastic settlements, and was reputedly founded by St.Brigid in 470 A.D. The round tower to the right of the cathedral is a 12th century rebuild on the granite foundations of an earlier tower; standing at almost 33 m. high, it's the second tallest in Ireland. The shot above was taken looking in a south-westerly direction from the centre of ring-barrow KD022-043, which is one of a dozen or more ring-barrows and ring-ditches which form a cluster in an area known as Curragh Beag on the plains of the Curragh, Co.Kildare. The distance from KD022-043 to St.Brigid's cathedral is less than three kilometres.



A view of the cathedral and round tower from the outer bank of ring-barrow KD022-043:



This Google Earth image shows ring-barrow KD022-043, with the larger ring-barrow of Raheenanairy lying less than 100 metres to the SW. The yellow line is the winter solstice sunset alignment which passes through the site of St.Brigid's cathedral in Kildare town (this alignment also passes directly through the centre of ring-barrow KD022-046, 600 metres downslope of KD022-043, the significance of which I'll return to later). Note the smaller satellite barrows/ring-ditches close to these larger monuments; It was clearly a place of great importance in prehistory.




For me, the intriguing thing about witnessing the winter solstice sunset from KD022-043 was seeing the sun set behind Drum Criadh (the hill Kildare town sits upon) between the cathedral and the round tower. I've used the term "winter solstice sunset" even though the above was witnessed two days prior to the official solstice; the word solstice derives from the latin 'solstitium' which by definition means 'sun standstill', and describes the phenomenon whereby the sun appears to rise in the same place on the horizon a couple of days before and after the solstice; the same is also true of the sunset. The irony hasn't escaped me that when you see the winter solstice sun descend and eventually set between these two structures today, one can easily see how two prehistoric monoliths could have marked such an event millennia ago. What's most remarkable is that at that particular spot is sited an enigmatic structure known as St.Brigid's Fire Temple. The restored, rectangular footings of this structure can be seen in the grounds of the cathedral today.



St.Brigid's fire temple:



The grounds of St.Brigid's cathedral showing the position of the Fire Temple:




In his 'Life of St.Brigid' (Vita Sanctae Brigitae), Cogitosus, a Kildare monk writing in the mid-7th century, tells us that the Fire Temple was a sanctuary where a perpetual flame was kept alight by nineteen nuns. Geraldus Cambrensis later wrote "...............this fire is surrounded by a hedge which is circular and made of withies, and which no male may cross................Only women are allowed to blow the fire, and then not with the breath of their mouths, but only with the bellows, or winnowing forks..........." Some scholars have suggested that this Fire Temple had its origins in the Iron Age, and was a centre of pagan religious worship, and have gone as far as to suggest it was the site of a fire-cult dedicated to the goddess Brigid.
The eminent historian and archaeologist R.A.S. Macalister argued that Brigid was a leader of a coven of priestesses devoted to a pagan fire-cult at the site of a sacred oak who persuaded her charges to adopt the new religion of Christianity (source - Catherine Swift: Brigid, Patrick and the Kings of Kildare, A.D. 640-850; Kildare:History & Society).
The parallels between the ritual practices at this temple and those practised at other ancient sites such as at the 'Temple of Vesta' in Rome and the temples of Hestia in Greece are hard to ignore. It's even more intriguing when you know Vesta and Hestia were goddesses of the hearth and fertility, as was the Celtic goddess Brigid amongst other things. However, I think we can safely say the Fire Temple at Kildare was not built in the classic style like those that housed the shrines to Hestia and Vesta, and in reality was most likely an unsophisticated looking structure. The reconstruction of the Fire Temple at the site of the cathedral today is probably based on a late medieval interpretation of what was believed to have been there in the early medieval period.

An 18th Century illustration of the ruined St.Brigid's Abbey with the ruins of the Fire Temple sitting close to a 'sacred' oak tree:




This model reconstruction of the early medieval monastic settlement at Kildare can be seen within St.Brigid's cathedral today. The impression one gets reading the description of the 'Fire House', as it's described, is that it had a more utilitarian use rather than one of ritual:




Observing the winter solstice sunset from ring-barrow KD022-043 came by way of chance really. I had initially believed it was possible to witness the winter solstice sun set at the site of St.Brigid's cathedral from a different ring-barrow, KD022-046, which lies 600 metres downslope. KD022-046 is a largely intact monument with a well preserved SW-facing causewayed entrance. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be possible to observe the sunset from there because the view is now obscured by trees which surround Cill Dara golf course. I had to find a spot elsewhere upslope along the same solstice alignment where I could see the cathedral and round tower above the tree canopy. I extended the alignment north-eastward from the site of St.Brigid's and through the centre of ring-barrow KD022-046 and to my great surprise the alignment passed directly through the centre of KD022-043. What a nice coincidence, or so I thought! I would later discover that this wasn't just a one-off. The illustrated plan below shows some other solar alignments which appear to pass from the centre of one ring-barrow and directly through the centre of another. Is this just coincidence or was it by design? Incidentally, it wasn't until early December that I realised the entrance of KD022-046 wasn't aligned to the site of St.Brigid's cathedral, but was aligned to a place on Drum Criadh where the sun would set on the Nov./Feb. cross-quarter day; the period between the November cross-quarter day and the February cross-quarter day was what our ancestors would have considered their winter. KD022-046 could mark the beginning, middle (winter solstice) and end of winter it seems.



Note how several of these alignments pass from the centre of ring-barrow KD022-043 and pass directly through the centres of ring-barrows KD022-042 (Raheenanairy) and KD022-046. There's even a summer solstice sunrise alignment which passes from the centre of KD022-046 through the centre of KD022-042 (Raheenanairy) and on through a notch in its outer bank. One thought that crossed my mind was the tantalising possibility that sunrises and sunsets on solstice, equinox and cross-quarter days could have been marked quite accurately by erecting wooden posts (or even standing stones) outside the banks of these ring-barrows; in reality these markers wouldn't be placed along exact alignments such as those shown in the illustration above, but would be placed along an alignment which passed from the centre of the ring-barrow to where the sun is actually seen to rise or set on the horizon, which can often be on an area of higher ground like a hill or mountain. Far-fetched as this theory may sound, timber circles have been found directly associated with ring-barrows, such as at Mullaghmore, Co.Down and Lugg, Co.Dublin (source - Christiaan Corlett: Ring-barrows - a circular argument with a ring of truth? (2005)).

I can't be positive that there was a deliberate focus on the mid-winter solstice sunset from KD022-043 by our prehistoric forebears, but a convincing argument can be made that they may very well have had a particular interest in the setting and rising positions of the sun (and even the moon) at or close to the equinoxes from this ring-barrow. KD022-043 has two causewayed entrances, one facing east and the other is west-facing. The view east from this ring-barrow is beautiful, with the north Wicklow/south Dublin mountains looming large on the horizon. It would seem rather obvious that the east-facing entrance was deliberately aligned so that the sun could be seen to rise from a summit or between summits at the vernal or autumnal equinox (my initial investigations would suggest the sun rises up from Kippure mountain at the equinoxes). While the purpose of the east-facing entrance would seem clear-cut, a glance to the west is less spectacular and what one can see is the tree-covered, lower south-western slopes of Red Hill some six kilometres away. Curious if there was anything noteworthy in that area, I had a look at OSI maps and was somewhat surprised to find that that townland is known as Knocknagalliagh, and with the small bit of Irish I've got, sounded like an anglicisation of 'Cnoc na gCalliagh', which I interpreted as the "hill of the hag". Checking the 'Placenames Database of Ireland' (logainm.ie) would confirm my suspicions; a record dated 1837 suggested it was known locally as 'Cnoc na gCailleach', which the recorder has translated as "hill of the nuns". The historic 25" map shows a trig pillar on the summit of a hill there.

Irish place names bearing the name 'cailleach' have been interpreted as having had an association with a nunnery or nuns, and while some did, it's likely the name derived from a much earlier association with the cailleach as hag goddess. Belief held that the divine goddess had power over the weather, the harvest, livestock and the season of winter; she was also connected with mountains, hills, rocks, rivers and lakes.
Her connection with the physical landscape and features within it could also explain why the word 'cailleach'
is found in association with many megalithic sites throughout the country. We're all familiar with Sliabh na Calliagh ,"the hag's mountain" (Loughcrew, Co.Meath), Labbacallee wedge tomb,"the hag's bed", (Co.Cork), and the megalithic tomb on Sliabh Gullion (Co.Armagh) which is known as the "Calliagh Birra's house"; there's even a Knocknagalliagh in Co.Antrim, which is a burial mound with a row of standing stones in close proximity - an archaeological survey was carried out there in 2013. I can't help but wonder that Knocknagalliagh derived its name by way of its association with KD022-043, not least because at the equinoxes the setting sun will descend directly behind this hill as one looks on from its west-facing entrance. Standing on the hill one would also see the sun rise from Kippure to the east on the equinoxes. Maybe there was an ancient monument on the hill of Knocknagalliagh at some point, although the OSI's first edition historic map shows nothing of note. Medieval texts suggest this hill was the residence of the Leinster chieftain Dubhthach, father of St.Brigid, so maybe an ancient monument there was interpreted/misinterpreted as being his abode? This tentative link to St.Brigid may be the reason why it was called "the hill of the nuns" perhaps? Sadly, we'll never know for sure if there was any such monument on the hill because the summit has since been quarried away.

The illustration below is a plan of an archaeological excavation carried out at KD022-043 by Seán P. Ó Riordáin in 1944 (Ó Ríordáin, Seán P.: Excavation of some earthworks on the Curragh, Co.Kildare, 249-277.(II, July 1950); PRIA Volume 53 (1950-1951), section C):



The extended inhumation of a young woman (aged between twenty and thirty years old, with her head to the west) was found at the centre of this ring-barrow during excavation. The way the skeleton was positioned in the grave suggested to the archaeologists that this person had been buried alive, and was likely a ritual sacrifice. I recalled reading about this several years ago, but it wasn't until recently I realised this burial was found in the centre of KD022-043. The excavation would also suggest that the burial was a much later one (Iron Age) and not contemporaneous with the initial use of the barrow. Here's where I'm going to plonk both my feet firmly into the realm of speculation (fantasy some might say!), but I wonder could this "ritual sacrifice" of a young woman in her prime, have been an offering to appease, re-energise, revitalise the spirit of the hag goddess; a gift from the people to ensure a fruitful harvest or a mild winter?

Finally I want to return to the notion that the site of St.Brigid's cathedral was a sacred one, as early scholars have suggested, prior to the establishment of an early-medieval Christian settlement there. When you're standing in the grounds of the cathedral it's difficult to ignore Red Hill which lies 3.5 kilometres away to the W-NW. I had an inkling that the summer solstice sun could be seen to descend behind this hill (see the upper left hand corner of the illustrated plan 'PLATE 2' above). 'The Photographer's Ephemeris' would also indicate there was a significant alignment there at the summer solstice. Unfortunately it wasn't going to be possible to confirm this from the grounds of the cathedral because the view of the summit is obscured by trees. The nearest place I could find along the same alignment would be in a wheat field two kilometres outside Kildare town. Here's what Red Hill looks like from an area close to that wheat field:



The sky was very overcast for much of Sunday, the 21st. of June last, and after waiting almost a year to see the summer solstice sunset, it wasn't looking promising and it was doubtful I'd see the sun descend behind Red Hill at all.

The gods were on my side it would seem, for at 21:37 that evening I witnessed the following:



It looked like the sun was descending directly behind the summit, but not wholly content with what I saw, I visited the site the following evening too, and with a beautiful blue sky over Red Hill, I got these shots:





The solstice sun was clearly descending behind the summit of Red Hill and just to the left of the trivallate ring-barrow KD022-009 which lies some 150 metres or so east of the summit. What I was seeing is more or less what someone else would see if they were standing at the site of St.Brigid's cathedral in Kildare. So what's going on here? Well, I believe the site of St.Brigid's was a sacred site long before the establishment of the monastic settlement, and probably long before the Iron Age too. I've established that it's possible to witness a winter solstice sun set at the site from the Curragh; in an earlier post I showed how the axis of the linear feature on Long Hill was aligned directly to the site of the cathedral, and of course we have the summer solstice sunset observation from the site itself. Could these observations bolster the notion that Kildare was an important and sacred place in prehistory?

I spent the wee hours of the morning observing the Lunar eclipse from Raheenanairy ring-barrow on the Curragh (just for a little added atmosphere!). It was amazing to see, and made me wonder what our prehistoric ancestors would have made of it?! I took this shot at 4:09 a.m.