A Year in Ireland: November 2011

I'm taking a class at NUIG called Landscapes of Cult and Kingship: The Ancient Royal Sites of Ireland. For the class we went on a Field Trip to two of these sites, The Hill of Tara and Navan Fort in Armagh. Royal Sites are where the kings of the different provinces of Ireland were crowned and may have lived.

First we went to the Hill of Tara. The Hill of Tara is part of a large landscape combined of different monuments. Its probably the most sacred place in Ireland.

The Banquet hall looking up to the top of the hill of Tara.

The Banquet Hall looking down into the valley from the top of the Hill of Tara.

When a king came to Tara to be crowned, he would walk up to the hill through the banquet hall. Although the monument is called the banquet hall, it doesn't resemble a banquet hall in any way except that it is long and rectangular-ish in shape (in reality it has a slight curve to it). The banquet hall at Tara is a large ditch lined on two sides by large embankments which make a kind of tunnel or pathway up to the top of the hill.

As on exits the banquet hall the Mound of Hostages begins to appear. The Mound of the Hostages is the oldest monument on the Hill of Tara. It is a tomb, and it may have gotten its name because the ancient chiefs of Ireland would exchange their hostages at Tara.