Spiralling Inward ~ Connecting Outward: Meath

Monday, December 30, 2019

Ella Young in the Brugh of Angus ~ commonly known as Newgrange

Irish poet, mystic and folklorist, Ella Young (1867 – 1956) wrote in her memoirs Flowering Dusk... (1945) about an experience she had, on her own, inside what she names as "the Brugh of Angus" and what is commonly called Newgrange in County Meath. The date of this visit is not given but Ella left Ireland, never to return, in 1925.

In her chapter entitled "Cave of the Red Steeds" she recounts her lengthy stay in a farmhouse near Cong, County Mayo, and entering a natural cave with many chambers where she remained for some time.

"My thoughts went back to another silence—silence and darkness in the Brugh of Angus, the artificial chambered mound at Newgrange by the Boyne. I sat alone in the Central Chamber of the Brugh (having bribed the custodian to absent herself and her candles). The roof arched above me in blackness and there was great silence about me, penetrated by the chill joyousness of the Brugh. Suddenly, I became aware that the Chamber was filling with pale light that surged like water through the narrow tortuous entrance passage. Like water, it seemed to have weight and substance. Washed by this pale liquid slow-moving light the pillar-stone of the Brugh suddenly flamed silver, shot up like a column of moon-fire. The Sun, journeying westward, had touched it with an out-stretched finger.

Ella Young goes on to compare the cave in Cong and the Brugh in Meath—noting that "the Brugh of Angus had been carefully fashioned. The Ultonian* kings paid honour to it, and at the Samhain Festival processions wound among the standing stones that still, in broken formation, circle the mound. Fire leaped on the summit. Five great roads converged on it."
* A native or inhabitant of Ulster

Saturday, May 18, 2019

Ancestral lands: Trim and the Boyne River

Walking among my ancestors along the banks of the Boyne River in May. Exploring, imagining and conjuring up my mythic and historic past. In the dark of winter 1996 I came to Trim at the end of my first sojourn in Ireland. I was tired and ready to return home. From Kildare I had driven to Trim and checked into Brogan's, a room above the pub. Here, I told myself, I would spend my last few days in quiet, recouping somewhat from what had come before. And, preparing myself for re-entry into what I believed then was the real world that waited for me in California.

Then I met Bóinn ~ the Irish goddess of the River Boyne. She spoke, I listened, and was forever changed.

Trim and the river have been a central part of every trip to Ireland since that time. Even when I lived for one incredible year in North Leitrim, I spent time on the Boyne.

Very recently I returned to Ireland after nearly nine years. I decided to wait until my last four days to go to Trim and again I took a room over the pub at Brogan's. I spent many hours each day walking the banks of the Boyne - usually very early in the morning or at twilight. This time, however, I had knowledge of ancestors who had walked as I did along the river. The family, Anglo-Normans from Wales, were in Meath as early as 1200 and closely associated with the de Lacy and Mortimer families. So now I communed with Bóinn and with my ancient ancestors. Trim castle, situated along her banks, held deeper meaning for me now.