Adventures through Ancient Ireland: Doagh Holestone

 

We chose a soggy and windswept Sunday morning to visit another one of the countless remnants of ancient Ireland left strewn across the country.

 

Doagh holestone is a bronze-age megalith (around 2000BC) not far from Ballymena in County Antrim and is one of only a few holestones from this period remaining in Ireland.

 

 

In recent centuries Irish couples have been known to pledge their love to each other while clasping hands through this stone. But was it erected for that same purpose 4000 years ago? The romantic in me would like to think so but one theory about holestones is that bronze-age men would have  inserted their penises in these groin-height holes in order to ensure fertility! 

 

Either way, the connection to love and marriage remains today and some young couples still travel to the stone after their wedding ceremonies, or for bethrothals or handfasting ceremonies. I know Danny and I will be back to this site (hopefully in sunnier weather) for one of our year(and-a-day)ly handfastings.

 

Handfasting number 5

 

For those of you new to Lost & Found, Danny and I have a small ceremony every year called a handfasting. It's a very ancient pagan marriage ceremony that binds a couple together for a year and a day. This was our fifth and the first time my parents were there to witness it.

 

 

It also happened to be during our holidays in Spain and the same day as our friends Macarena and Victor's wedding, so there was a lot of love around that day.

 

Our first handfasting was a year and a day before our 'official' wedding day and they've carried on each year and a day since. It is a short ceremony and usually only a few friends or family are present but I'm already planning a huge party for our tenth handfasting in an ancient Stone Circle at Ballynoe.

 

 

 

Married yet again!

Adventures in sacred Ireland: Nendrum

 

During a brief spell of sunshine last week Danny and I escaped the big bad city and found a little oasis of calm which I never even knew existed before, just 16 miles out of the city. I'm mapping out sacred Ireland for myself inch by inch.

 

On the edge of Strangford Lough lie a series of tiny islands connected by causeways and on the very last one, Mahee Island, sits Nendrum monastic site dating from the mid fifth century, when Christianity was beginning to flourish in Ireland under St. Patrick. This monastery was founded by an associate of his called Saint Mo Choí.

 

The monastery had its greatest days between the 7th and 10th Centuries and the ruins include a church, a round tower and a sundial all within enclosures of three concentric circles.

 

 

We brought the sunday papers with us and sat on the grass overlooking a bay full of yachts.

Ireland is real pretty when the sun's out.

 

With this ring......

 

 

So you may have gathered that I like getting my craft on, but I've always been a bit useless when it comes to fabric crafts. My seamstress granny taught me to sew (ish) but to my shame I've never learned to crochet, knit or make clothes.

 

So I made my fabric crafts debut with this little ring cushion. My sister was recently bridesmaid for her lovely friend Angharad's winter wedding in Cambridge and I undertook to make this for her. The burgundy felt went with the colours of the wedding and as she was a Northern Irish girl marrying an American in England, we chose to use the vintage Irish lace doilies to reflect her roots.

It turned out quite cute I think, just don't look too closely at the stitiching!

 

(I took these photos before posting the ring cushion so that's my beautious engagement ring that Danny chose all on his own-io. Clever boy!)

love is in the air.....

Happy belated congratulations to my lovable brother Colm and his adorable fiance Dinali on their engagement! (at the top of Snowdonia should you be interested) And we've just had a wonderful weekend of 60th birthday celebrations for my pa and did our bit for international relations, bonding with our fabulous in-laws to-be Rohan and Swarna.

I hope your weekend has been suitably entertaining!

(and apologies for my fall of the face off the planet recently, I've been super busy with all sorts of crafty goings-on. More of which to follow............Real soon.)

A third handfasting at Navan Fort.

Three years and three days after our first handfasting, Dan and I chose the 3,000 year old site of Navan (just outside Armagh) to celebrate another handfasting.

At Navan there is a reconstructed Iron Age wooden round house which we were invited into by three iron age women. It was beautifully made with a faux-fire in the middle and floored with sheepskin and deerskin. I could have moved in on the spot.

The ladies (in character the whole time) told us about their lives, how they hunted in iron age times and also about how when people wished to marry they had a handfasting which lasted for a year and a day - a trial marriage of sorts. After this time they could agree to part or to stay together.

We said 'but that's what we're doing here!'

They told us that must be the reason the sun god Lugh was shining down that morning after so much rain, and apologised that their bards and druids were not around to carry out the binding for us.

The ancient hill was mentioned by Ptolemy's geography of the 2nd Century AD, so it's a pretty important place even though most people I mentioned it to have never heard of it.

We walked through a tunnel of trees, past a half-built giant wicker man (which will be burnt on August 5th to celebrate the pre-christian festival of Lughnasa) and then climbed the sacred hill.

Most wonderful of all the hill was deserted the whole time we were there and we were able to sit down on my coat, renew our original handfasting vows and tie our hands together before walking around the perimeter of the hill to make a binding circle.

Just married, yet again!

Magical Meath, part 2: clootie tree

 I have been to Tara before but somehow was unaware that there is the most wonderful clootie tree there.

I've blogged before about a clootie tree we found in Connemara and St.Aiden's clootie well in Benevanagh but this is the most magical one yet.

  Lone hawthorn trees are usually known as fairy thorns in Ireland and those which are associated with a nearby sacred spring sometimes become 'clootie trees'. The branches are adorned with rag votives as an offering to a local deity, or more often in today's Catholic Ireland to accompany a prayer.

This tree is covered in the biggest array of objects I've ever seen, I suspect mostly left by tourists who have no knowledge of the age-old pagan practice they are taking part in! There are strips of material, hair bobbles, jewellery, christmas decorations, bits of plastic, cuddly boys and empty baggies all adorning this fairy thorn.

Another practice seen on trees in Ireland and Scotland and is to wedge coins into grooves in the bark of the tree and this thorn also has holy medals tucked away in the crannies of branches. It really is a wonder to behold. Here's the 10p offering we left.

The Hill of Tara itself is a sacred place which served as the spiritual and political capital of Ireland until at least the 6th Century. It was important since neolithic times and is part of the Bru na Boinne area which encompasses the nearby 5,000 year old passage tombs of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth. It can be hard to distinguish the true history of Tara from the many mythological stories about it, but why should we want to ruin that romance; the truth about what went down there in the past would probably turn out to be just as mind-blowing as the folklore associated with the site.

Magical Meath, part 1: Rath Maeve

At the weekend Danny and I escaped the big bad city and went to County Meath for two nights. We intended to camp on the first night but the rain put paid to that plan and instead we stayed in a lodge right opposite the entrance to the Newgrange complex of 5,000 year old passage tombs.

But more of that later. These photographs are from a little known ancient enclosure called Rath Maeve, which I henceforce claim as my spiritual home (my name is Maeve in case you didn't know). Maeve was an important Goddess and a fearsome queen who was married to nine successive high kings of Ireland.

Rath Maeve is a 750ft enclosure just a couple of minutes down the road from the hill of Tara, the seat of the high kings of Ireland which is often referenced in mythology. It is a simple large clearing with earthworks around much of the perimeter and an opening facing towards Tara. There is a beautiful peacefulness about the place, but then I'm biased because it was named after me.

Home at last.

New Year in Helen's Tower

Our good friends (and relatives) Fiona and Phillip had the bright idea to rent the amazing Helen's Tower in Clandeboye Estate outside for Bangor for this New Years.

Husband Danny and our lot went to the Palookaville carry-out disco for New Years again this year and then today Dan, his sister Lucy and I drove out to see them today. The path up to it is a bit of an off-roading experience but it's worth the effort - check this place out!

Helen's Tower was completed in 1861 in honour of the owner Lord Dufferin's mother who was herself the grand daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the great Irish playwright, orator and politician.

It was built as an idyllic retreat and poems were written in its honour by Tennyson, Kipling, Argyll and other luminaries of the nineteenth century literary world, and I can see why. Huddled far away from the seething masses with a roaring fire, it was a very special afternoon, accompanied by an impressive bottle of Champagne. Okay, Cava.

There were views from the roof of the tower over Bangor and the metropolitan Newtownards as well as to Scrabo Tower on a far away hillside. I hate those foreign landlords who came in and stole our land, but they sure did leave some nice buildings behind.

This place can be rented out through http://www.irishlandmark.com/ (I'm not getting paid for this) and would be an amazing venue for a wedding or handfasting.