Step into the Past

Where else in the world could you just go to a neighbouring house to get the key and then walk up the road into a chamber where your ancestors were placed 5000 years ago and is still well preserved because it was not uncovered until the 1950s?

The one I visited recently is Fourknocks, a passage tomb in the Boyne Valley, ten miles from the megalithics of Newgrange. Though less visited than its neighbour it has a larger inner chamber, indeed the largest in Ireland.

What it brought home to me is how much more we can know about our ancestors than I thought possible and also, they were smarter than I presumed.  

When returning the key to its keeper down the road I got a copy of Anthony Murphy’s ‘Fourknocks: Archaeology, Astronomy and Mythology’.  I recommend it to anyone with an interest in Ireland’s early years. It gives not only a detailed account of  Fourknocks but also an easy-to-read introduction to life, monuments and art in early Ireland. His enthusiasm for the subject is heart-warming.

Fourknocks is from the same cultural period as neighbouring Newgrange but has no car park, interpretative centre or guides. You find the house of the key-keeper, park on the side of the road, walk up a tidy path and come upon a grassy tomb looking out over countryside that has not changed over centuries.

The entrance passage is short and low, and the chamber inside dark, but there is enough natural light to appreciate the size and to note three recesses in which most of the human remains were found. With a phone torch you can make out some of the wall carvings but it is difficult to see the detail Anthony Murphy describes so well in his book. One unusual figure seems to be that of a woman.

When the tomb was discovered in the 1950s, the Office of Public Works carried out careful archaeological examinations before doing an admirable job in preserving its character and atmosphere.

The reason the tomb and its contents were in good condition was because building an arched roof over such a wide chamber proved too much for the ambitious builders of that time and it collapsed at an early period.

Inside the remains of over sixty individuals were found, equally divided between men and women. There also were children. They were not royalty, just families in the community.

On the way out the passage you can glimpse Mullaghteelin Hill off in the distance. Anthony Murphy describes the alignment of the passage not only with stars but with other similar monuments in a northerly direction. Our past is far more sophisticated than we credit it.  

If you want to experience Fourknocks it would be good to go soon. Anthony Murphy warns how unthinking visitors have damaged nearby sites with graffiti and garbage and that is beginning to happen at Fourknocks. The OPW who manages the site may not continue to consider it safe to leave it so available and vulnerable.