Celtic Spirituality Pilgrimage, Day 2: Newgrange and Kells

St. David's Episcopal Church

Celtic Spirituality Pilgrimage

led by

Ken and Darlene Swanson

Day 2, April 5th: Newgrange, Kells and Westport - Ireland

After breakfast and prayer we boarded our bus in Dublin and drove north to the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Newgrange.  It was built during the Neolithic period about 3200BC, making it over 5000 years old--far older than either Stonehenge or the Pyramids in Egypt.



The site, consisting of a large circular mound with a stone passageway and interior chambers, was built by Stone Age people who managed to move stones weighing several tons from over 50 miles away.  It is simply astonishing that using only stone tools and without draft animals or the wheel, they were able to build this magnificent burial site.



There is no agreement among scholars about what the site was used for, but there is consensus it had religious significance, marking the winter solstice.  The interior chamber is perfectly aligned so that the rising sun on the winter solstice floods the long passage and fills the interior chamber with light.



Many of the massive exterior kurbstones are covered with designs depicting the sun and geometric patterns.  Of particular note are the only two Neolithic Tri-Spirals anywhere in the world, one in the interior chamber (above) and the other on the entrance curbstone (below).

St. David's Pilgrims at Newgrange

We then turned west driving to Kells Abbey, founded by St. Columba in the 6th century.

It is believed that the Book of Kells, begun on Iona, was taken to Kells Abbey in the 9th century to protect it from marauding Vikings.  It remained the Gospel book used in the abbey's worship until it was again threatened by Oliver Cromwell's Puritan army in the 17th century.  It was then moved to Trinity College, Dublin, where it remains today.  There are more free standing Celtic crosses in the Kells Abbey cemetery than anywhere else in Ireland.

After crossing the entire breadth of Ireland, we arrived in Westport, a beautiful city on the west coast.  We ended our evening with prayer and a teaching by Darlene Swanson on the main characteristics of CELTIC Christianity: Community, Equality, Loving soul-friends (Anam Cara), Thin places, Integration of the past, and Creation.  All these rest on the foundation of Christ and love of the Trinity. This gave the pilgrims an acronym we will long remember.