Tour of Meath

This sounds like a cycle race. But it was a tour that T and I just did by car. We were exploring ancient sites chosen by Peter Harbison, the former head of the National Museum of Ireland. I was given a copy of his guide book ‘Monuments of Ireland’ as a going away present from my job in England when I left to join Queen’s. The book was given to me by Des, a young colleague from Mayo, and it has been by far the best and most used present I received.

That was in December 1997, during those almost twenty years I have travelled through every county of this island by bicycle searching out the ancient sites he picked out as the most interesting. It has been a process of exploration as many of these ancient sites are difficult to find. They are often in fields surrounded by cattle, behind new bungalows and rarely signposted. You need a good OS map to find most of the sites in the guide and even then some still remained undiscovered.

The Irish approach to antiquity appears to be benign neglect. The ruins are usually left alone and rarely exploited by the heritage industry. I am all for this. I can’t stand interpretative centres with their mock ups and models, as you often get in England, I want to experience the real thing.

We started in Ardee. This is the only town I know with three castles on the main street. They are tower houses. The sort that you got a government grant to help build in medieval times. You find these throughout the Pale. Then we went on to Cruicetown, which was a settlement built by the de Crys family around 1200. They were Normans. All that remains is a ruined church in the middle of a field of cattle with later family tombs in it. We picnicked there using a large flat tomb as a table. Interestingly, over centuries the spelling of the family name changes to Cruise. So is this quiet site now in danger of being overrun by Scientologists and film fans?

The next stop was Kells, which had a large monastery founded by monks from Iona who were fleeing the Vikings. The Book of Kells was said to have been written there in the 9th Century. But the monastery was raided repeatedly by the Vikings and the Irish and burnt and the Book stolen. All that remains of this is a large round tower and four high crosses, most of which are in a dilapidated state.

Travelling back in time, we went on to the Hill of Ward. This is a splendid isolated hill with earthworks. It was said to have been founded by Lug and dedicated to the sacred fire. For thousands of years there were gatherings here to celebrate the passing of autumn and the beginning of winter. In ancient times, all the men of Ireland were called to take part. This was the feast of Samhain, which has been sort of transposed into Halloween. From the top of the hill you can clearly see Slieve Gullion and the Wicklow mountains.

We spent a good while at Trim, the town with the greatest concentration of ancient sites in Meath. It has the largest and best preserved Norman castle in Ireland, which featured in Braveheart (this Australian-Scottish epic was all filmed in Ireland)). Along a lovely riverside path beside the Boyne is a huge 12th century monastic settlement, as well as remnants of a 14th century abbey, town walls and tower.

Then we followed the Boyne up to Bective Abbey, a well preserved Cistercian monastery with a fine cloister. We ended up at Duleek at the remains of an Augustinian priory, where the youth of the town were hanging out, smoking dope and having pizza delivered. They sat on a large flat tombstone and ate their repast. We repaired to the restaurant next door, which happened to be in an old church. It had been a grand day out that had ranged over many centuries, a salutary lesson in learning from the past and living for today.