Loughcrew or Lough Crew () is an area of historical importance near Oldcastle,

County Meath County Meath (; gle, Contae na Mí or simply ) is a county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. It is bordered by Dublin to the southeast, Louth to the northeast, Kildare to the south, Offaly to the ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

. It is home to a group of ancient tombs from the

4th millennium BC The 4th millennium BC spanned the years 4000 BC to 3001 BC. Some of the major changes in human culture during this time included the beginning of the Bronze Age and the invention of writing, which played a major role in starting recorded history. ...

, some decorated with rare

megalithic art Megalithic art refers to art either painted or carved onto megaliths in prehistoric Europe. Elizabeth Shee Twohig has coined the term Megalithic art in her study of The Megalithic Art of Western Europe. Her original definition of Megalithic a ...

, which sit on top of a range of hills. The hills and tombs are together known as

Slieve na Calliagh Slieve na Calliagh () are a range of hills and ancient burial site near Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland. The summit is , the highest point in the county. On the hilltops are about twenty passage tombs, some decorated with rare megalithic art, ...

(''Sliabh na Caillí'') and are the highest point in Meath. It is one of the four main

passage tomb A passage grave or passage tomb consists of one or more burial chambers covered in earth or with stone, and having a narrow access passage made of large stones. These structures usually date from the Neolithic Age, and are found largely in Wester ...

cemeteries in Ireland and is a protected

National Monument A national monument is a monument constructed in order to commemorate something of importance to national heritage, such as a country's founding, independence, war, or the life and death of a historical figure. The term may also refer to a spe ...

. The area is also home to the Loughcrew Estate, from which it is named.

The tombs

Entrance passage with cup marks, Loughcrew cairn T

There are remains of more than twenty ancient tombs at Loughcrew. It is one of the four main

cemeteries in Ireland along with

Brú na Bóinne (; 'Palace of the Boyne' or more properly 'Valley of the Boyne') or Boyne valley tombs, is an area in County Meath, Ireland, located in a bend of the River Boyne. It contains one of the world's most important prehistoric landscapes dating from ...

, Carrowkeel and

Carrowmore Carrowmore ( ga, An Cheathrú Mhór, 'the great quarter') is a large group of megalithic monuments on the Coolera Peninsula to the west of Sligo, Ireland. They were built in the 4th millennium BC, during the Neolithic (New Stone Age). There ...

. The

megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

ic monuments are spread across four hilltops: Carnbane East, Carnbane West, Carrickbrack and Patrickstown Hill. These hills and the tombs themselves are together known as

or ''Sliabh na Caillí'', meaning "mountain of the

Cailleach In Gaelic ( Irish, Scottish and Manx) myth, the Cailleach (, ) is a divine hag and ancestor, associated with the creation of the landscape and with the weather, especially storms and winter. The word literally means 'old woman, hag', and is fou ...

", the divine

hag HAG is a Swiss maker of model trains. The company was founded by Hugo and Alwin Gahler on 1 April 1944 in St. Gallen, Switzerland. The Gahler brothers originally manufactured model trains in O scale but due to competition, particularly by Mär ...

Irish mythology Irish mythology is the body of myths native to the island of Ireland. It was originally oral tradition, passed down orally in the Prehistoric Ireland, prehistoric era, being part of ancient Celtic religion. Many myths were later Early Irish ...

. Legend has it that the monuments were created when a giant hag, striding across the land, dropped her cargo of large stones from her apron. No comprehensive dating programme has been conducted there, but the monuments are estimated to date from about 3300 BC. The monuments consist of cruciform chambers, all of which would have been covered by mounds. A unique style of

petroglyphs A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

is found there, including lozenge shapes, leaf shapes, as well as circles, some surrounded by radiating lines.photos of megalithic art in Cairn T
from knowth.com The

orthostat This article describes several characteristic architectural elements typical of European megalithic (Stone Age) structures. Forecourt In archaeology, a forecourt is the name given to the area in front of certain types of chamber tomb. Forecourts ...

s and structural stones of the monuments tend to be from local green

gritstone Gritstone or grit is a hard, coarse-grained, siliceous sandstone. This term is especially applied to such sandstones that are quarried for building material. British gritstone was used for millstones to mill flour, to grind wood into pulp for ...

, which was soft enough to carve. In 1980 Irish-American researcher Martin Brennan discovered that Cairn T in Carnbane East is directed to receive the beams of the rising sun on the spring and autumnal

equinox A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise "due east" and se ...

- the light shining down the passage and illuminating the art on the backstone.Documented i
photos and videos taken on site for six years in a row
/ref>Brennan, Martin, ''The Stars and the Stones: Ancient Art and Astronomy in Ireland'' - Thames and Hudson (1983); later re-published as ''The Stones of Time'' (1996). Brennan also discovered alignments in Cairn L (), Knowth, and Dowth in the Boyne Valley. The Cairn T alignment is similar to the well-known illumination at the passage tomb at Brú na Bóinne (

Newgrange Newgrange ( ga, Sí an Bhrú) is a prehistoric monument in County Meath in Ireland, located on a rise overlooking the River Boyne, west of Drogheda. It is an exceptionally grand passage tomb built during the Neolithic Period, around 32 ...

), which is aligned to catch the rays of the

winter solstice The winter solstice, also called the hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winter ...

sunrise. Irish folklore holds that it is bad luck to damage or disrespect such tombs and that doing so could bring a curse. However, some of the Loughcrew tombs have been vandalised with graffiti, and security patrols have been put in place."Security patrols put in place after vandalism at Neolithic site"
''The Irish Times'', 30 April 2021.

Modern history

In more recent centuries Loughcrew became the seat of a branch of the Norman-Irish

Plunkett Plunkett is an Irish surname derived from the Gaelic Ó ''Pluingceid''. It is associated with Ireland, and possibly of Norse or Norman origin; it may be spelled O'Plunket, Plunket, Plunkit, Plunkitt, Plonkit, Plonkitt, Plonket, Plonkett, or Ó Pl ...

family, whose most famous member became the martyred

St Oliver Plunkett Oliver Plunkett (or Oliver Plunket) ( ga, Oilibhéar Pluincéid), (1 November 1625 – 1 July 1681) was the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland who was the last victim of the Popish Plot. He was beatified in 1920 and ...

. The family church stands in the grounds of Loughcrew Gardens. With its barren isolated location, ''Sliabh na Caillí'' became a critical meeting point throughout the Penal Laws for Roman Catholics. Even though the woods are now gone an excellent example of a Mass Rock can still be seen on the top of ''Sliabh na Caillí'' today. The Plunketts were involved in running the Irish Confederacy of the 1640s and were dispossessed in the

Cromwellian Settlement The Act for the Setling of Ireland imposed penalties including death and land confiscation against Irish civilians and combatants after the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and subsequent unrest. British historian John Morrill wrote that the Act and a ...

of 1652. Their estate at Loughcrew was assigned by Sir William Petty to the Napier Family c. 1655. The Napiers are descended from Sir Robert Napier who was Chief Baron of the Exchequer of Ireland in 1593.Bunbury, Turtle (2003, 2006
"Loughcrew House, Co. Meath - Gilded Magnificence"
/ref> The Napiers built an extensive estate of some 180,000 acres (730 km²) in north Meath in the subsequent centuries which mirrored that developed by their neighbouring Cromwellians, the Taylors of Headfort. Following a third and devastating fire, in 1964, the three Napier sons went to court and requested that the state allow the family trust to be broken up and the estate divided between the three sons. Subsequently, the house and gardens have been restored by Charles and Emily Napier, who open the gardens and run an annual opera festival.Lyttelton, Celia (May 2009)
Interiors: aria condition
" ''Telegraph, UK.''

References

External links

Loughcrew at Voices from the Dawn

Details of how to obtain access to the interior of Cairn T

From http://www.mythicalireland.com

Loughcrew on video

Loughcrew Megalithic Centre

Loughcrew Estate

Loughcrew Adventure Centre
{{Coord, 53.744672, -7.112483, format=dms, region:IE_type:landmark, display=title Archaeological sites in County Meath Mountains and hills of County Meath National Monuments in County Meath 4th-millennium BC architecture

The tombs

Modern history

See also

References

External links