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On this summer solstice, stand in its light and let yourself be counted among the living, the growing, the beautifully unfinished. The wheel does not stop here, but it pauses, just long enough for you to feel the warmth on your face, and know that you are exactly where the year has brought you.

Johann J. Scheuchzer, Subterranean rivers (Tab. VI), 1716.

A shivering shape at the edge of your eye — the figure who waits at the end of the drive.

–L.M. Montgomery

Histoire de la Magie, 1870

Aerial views of this land and monuments produce configurations that are beautifully organic – almost like internal parts of the human body: the earth offering up its humanity.

Stevens, F., 1933. Stonehenge today & yesterday. Library of Alexandria.

The Mound of the Hostages (Duma na nGiall), is the oldest visible monument on the Hill of Tara. The mound covers a passage tomb built 5,000 years ago (around 3,000 BC). It was used as a place to bury human remains for more than 1,500 years. The mound lies near the northern edge of a large enclosure called Ráith na Ríg (Fort of the Kings) which was built around 100 BC. The line of Ráith na Ríg was laid out so that the ancient mound would lie within it thus respecting its importance. The Mound of the Hostages got it name in the medieval period because it was the place where the symbolic exchange of hostages took place. The Tara excavation project began in the early summer of 1952, directed by Seán P. Ó Ríordáin, Professor of Celtic Archaeology at University College, Dublin. In 1956, after two seasons excavation at the mound, Prof Ó Ríordáin became ill. He died in 1957. His successor, Professor Ruaidhrí de Valera completed the excavation of the Mound of the Hostages in 1959. Dr Muiris O’Sullivan completed the task of publishing the excavation Duma na nGiall - The Mound of the Hostages in 2005.

Newgrange (Irish: Sí an Bhrú) is a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland, located about one kilometre north of the River Boyne. It was built during the Neolithic period around 3200 BC, making it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids.The site consists of a large circular mound with a stone passageway and interior chambers. The mound has a retaining wall at the front and is ringed by engraved kerbstones. There is no agreement about what the site was used for, but it has been speculated that it had religious significance – it is aligned with the rising sun and its light floods the chamber on the winter solstice. It is the most famous monument within the Neolithic Brú na Bóinne complex, alongside the similar passage tomb mounds of Knowth and Dowth, and as such is a part of the Brú na Bóinne UNESCO World Heritage Site. Newgrange also shares many similarities with other Neolithic constructions in Western Europe, such as Maeshowe in Orkney, Scotland and the Bryn Celli Ddu in Wales.