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A day south of Dublin with FourWinds

After meeting the delightful 4W at a gloomy shopping centre near Dun Laoghaire we set off on a brief tour of some of the sights NOT in the guidebooks of this part of the world.

I'd originally thought: 'I must see Newgrange', but I was easily talked out of it on the basis that I wanted to experience the monuments on my own (or at least with 4W), and not a tacky tourist zone.

First stop, the Druids' Judgement Seat, a bizarre ruin tucked away in a very nice urban area. Strange indeed and offering no clues whatsoever. Almost impossible to read what it was.

Second, the gloriously incongruous Ballybrack portal tomb which had survived against all the odds, and somehow now found itself on a piece of wasteland in a ghastly council estate. The sort of wasteland where small boys play football and girls go to gossip. I guess the tomb makes a change form a bus shelter. Tiny, almost cute the underside of the capstone was worked so as to be completely flat. Astonishing. From one angle it resembled a grandpiano. Amidst the dogshit, I sat and made a quick sketch.

Onwards to Rathmichael Burial Ground, a now disused cemetary (though I guess, still used by its occupants). Some kind soul had had the foresight to cement a number of very old tombstones indeed to the ruined walls of the church. With curious cupmarks of paisley swirls and and herringbone patterns, they were difficult to see in the flat light. Wonderful. I love cemetaries.

Ah, and then to the *utterly* orgasmic Glendruid. I am hopelessly in love with this, the dolmen of my dreams. And shall be making a collagraph print of it shortly.

A walk through a managed pine forest took us the now horribly jumble of stones that make up Ballyedmonduff Wedge Tomb. Imposed upon by the encroaching trees and with no room to breathe, this huge place had two distinct chambers and apparently once had roof lintels. Now lost. Hard to tell what should have been where, this is an example of staggeringly careless excavation. FourWinds thought that it once looked out over to Howth, a promentary just a few miles away, but the trees obscured its reference point inthe landscape. Bloody foresters. My protest was made by urinating in the trees.

An finally to Glencullen standing stone - a great shining white sugar cube of a lump of quartz. Christ, if it wasn't disrespectful to the lichen which had made there home upon it, I would be tempted to scrub it back to its Persilwhiteness to see it glow, glow, glow. A strangely solitary iceberg in a field, 4Ws told me he thought that it must have been part of a larger complex, as there is evidence of a nearby stone circle, now sadly lost.

Glendruid — Images

23.02.03ce
<b>Glendruid</b>Posted by Jane
Jane Posted by Jane
16th February 2003ce
Edited 16th February 2003ce


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