First to Knowth, these burial mounds probably had other religious purposes at the time (sun worship?), but who knows as it was way before Stonehenge and way before the pyramids in Egypt, this is seriously old stuff. The giant mound with a few surrounding minor mounds, all very very big......



The smaller mounds need a regular haircut, so......



The mound tunnels here are closed to the public, so no chance here to get inside one, but awe inspiring to wander around outside them. Evidence of posts in the ground led to this reconstruction, an early woodhenge in fact......



In the distance from the top of the big mound we can see the Newgrange mound which we next visited....



It is all fertile famland around here, cropping, sheep and cattle....



Now to Newgrange mound, somehow this one left us a bit cold, too recontructed looking and very possibly not the way it really was.......



This one we were allowed deep into the tunnel to see how the sun would have shone in at certain times of the year, no photos allowed inside...... so there's a blank here.

Meanwhile this is the entrance to the tunnel and the users in the ancient days had to scramble over that possibly sacred stone with the unique carvings.....



The big stones, known as kerbstones, surround the mound to originally hold back the earth mound top, but other modern stone work and concrete work has been done to hold it all together a bit better and to some extent it looks like it might have some thousands of years ago. Earliest dating seems to be about 3,600 BC, so they have been around for about 5,600 years or so. Incidentally in that 5,600 years there has never been any leak of water into the central chamber as they water-proofed it with clay and animal blood mixture then covered with varying layers of earth and stone. Back to the stones, here's some of the carving to be seen, it varies a lot from stone to stone......



Those stones weigh up to 10 tonnes or so and were floated and dragged here from many miles away.

While waiting for the bus to take us away, these young guys entertained us with darn good traditional Irish fiddle music....



Next onto Drogheda, the major town around here, chock-a-block with history, an interesting place, but easy to get lost in those twisty crazy streets. Every self respecting town needs an impressive gate.........



And also a decent sized cathedral.....



Next up to the Martello tower that overlooks the town, locally called the cup and saucer......



Inside it is a museum about Irish history, mostly wars and battles......



Finally back home to the Slane farm hostel and pack our bags ready to give the car back tomorrow in Dublin.....