…

Newgrange Solstice event to be streamed live  

see http://www.tarataratara.net/TaraBelfast/TBU27.htm

St Brigits Well on Rath Lugh . This well is centuries old and has been used as a healing well into living memory

The water from it runs into the Gabhra river just yards from where the motorway is being built

why the 8th?

well the first gathering at the Giants Ring for Tara was in respose to a call from Tarawatch for an International day for Tara

have no idea why they chose this date but it was a good day and a few of us gathered there again this year - and will again next year too ; )     -

and since then other connections with 8 have been turning up

see page TBU_eight  HERE

03/03/09

threes and multiples of 3 are especially associated with Tara - more about this  to follow

video of thePixies on St Patricks Day  2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZGLuhAJVMA

April 12, 2009

'Woodhenge' found in Hill of Tara's soil

Computers bring 4,500-year-old monument to life

The TV documentary features cutting-edge computer-generated images of what the ancient Irish monument might have looked like, based on archaeological evidence from the site

Gabrielle Monaghan

Ireland's “Stonehenge”, a 4,500-year-old structure at the Hill of Tara in Co Meath, has been re-created by archeologists and computer-graphics experts. They have built a representation of a huge, wooden monument that appears to have been used for inauguration ceremonies and pagan burials of Ireland’s high kings.

Underground remains of the structure were discovered by soil x-rays of the hill, which has been at the centre of an international dispute because of its proximity to the new M3 motorway. The model, to be shown on an RTE television documentary this week, was created using information gathered from studying a ditch, six metres wide and three deep, cut into the bedrock of the hill and enclosing the Mound of Hostages, an ancient passage tomb.

Study of the remains of tree trunks have prompted scientists to conclude the hill was once surrounded by a “wooden version of Stonehenge” that would have been 250 metres in diameter, a “massive scale” similar in size to Croke Park.

Archeologists believe elaborately decorated timber posts and crossbars rose out of the ditch and surrounded the tomb, which is believed to be Tara’s oldest monument. It is estimated the mound was raised in about 3,000BC, making it a contemporary of Stonehenge, the ancient monument in the English county of Wiltshire, and the pyramids of Egypt.

Tara was the coronation place of the country’s pre- Christian kings. A pillar stone, the Lia Fail, originally stood at the northern end of the Mound of Hostages and legend had it that when the true king of Ireland stood on this phallic symbol, it would roar.

Robert Vance, a historian who worked on the two-part RTE series, entitled Secrets of the Stones — Decoding Ireland’s Lost Past, and the author of an accompanying book of the same name, said there are a number of theories about what the wooden henge was used for.

“Part of the inauguration of new kings involved walking to the banqueting hall, which was really just a low subterranean channel, and passing the tombs of their forefathers,” Vance said.

“Perhaps they were then made kings in the centre of that timber circle. But there’s also a chance bodies of kings were left within the timber structure to decay. In some excavations, bones of birds were found as well. So it’s possible \ took place there, in which winged raptors such as eagles were used to deflesh the body. Pagan people of similar beliefs in native America and Polynesia thought that using birds to pick away at the body would allow the soul to become free.”

Using high-definition, computer-generated imagery, a vision of the circular arena at the Hill of Tara was created for the documentary. It posits catastrophic events 4,000 years ago may have caused a change in our ancestors’ beliefs.

At around this time, there is evidence Ireland’s passage tombs were abandoned in favour of “new monuments and new gods” and people were never buried in them again. One theory is that a long spell of bad weather could have led people to change their beliefs.

According to studies of ancient trees preserved in Ireland’s bogs, a growth pause caused by climate change occurred at this time, suggesting that some catastrophic event might have left people in fear.

Another theory is that a volcano in the 6th century may have frightened pagan Celts Celts into believing in “new” gods because of the weather changes caused when the dust reflected light and heat away from the Earth.

Vance believes, however, that the event that led people to change their beliefs was more likely a comet during the Bronze Age, which partly disintegrated and sent fireballs and flaming debris across the sky.

“We see such comet debris as shooting stars in the night sky. To our ancestors, these were terrifying heavenly signs,” he said. The comet would also have triggered a dust veil that caused temperatures to plunge. “The old-style temples like Newgrange weren’t powerful enough to compete with this new object in the sky,” according to the documentary.

“It was enough to make these ancient people question their very beliefs. Did the prehistoric passage tomb builders abandon their religion in the face of something they couldn’t understand, something that nearly wiped them out?”

In February, Tara was included in a list of “must-see” endangered sites by a magazine published by the Smithsonian Institute, one of America’s most influential museums. The site was equated with the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Tara has also been nominated for inclusion as a Unesco World Heritage site, and TaraWatch, a pressure group, claims the M3 should be re- routed as a result.

The National Roads Authority says work on the M3 is ahead of schedule and it could be finished before the July 2010 deadline. “The existing road to Navan is even closer to the Hill of Tara, and the new motorway won’t be seen from the hill, so it doesn’t visually impinge on it,” Vance said.

The documentary starts tomorrow at 6.30pm on RTE 1.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article6078000.ece

climate change

The March Equinox Explained

The March equinox will occur on March 20 in 2009, marking the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere and fall (autumn) in the southern hemisphere from an astronomical viewpoint. The March equinox will occur at 11:44 (am) at Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on this date. This illustration, which shows an example only of the March equinox, is not to scale. Twice a year, around March 20 or 21 and September 22 or 23, the sun shines directly on the equator and the length of day and night are nearly equal in all parts of the world. These two days are known as the March(vernal or spring in the northern hemisphere) equinox and the September equinox. To find the March equinox date in other time zones or other years, please use the Seasons Calculator.

http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/march-equinox.html

2007                                                       

TaraWatch Presents

Midsummer's Festival on Tara

20th to 24th of June 2007

AS the sun rises to its zenith in the sky, we remember the humanity of our existence on this planet, our unity, and come together at Tara in tribute to a common cause….
There is a great tradition, enjoyed by people of many different faiths and cultures, to gather at the Hill of Tara and to celebrate the Summer Solstice. This year, more than any other year, due to the M3 motorway crisis, we must send out a loud call for friends to come to her defence.

Please join us as we gather in unity to raise awareness for the preservation of Tara.

Celebrate Midsummer's at Tara

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82956

2008  

http://www.tarataratara.net/TaraBelfast/TBU20.htm

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146411660

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We come now at last to the ritual practices surrounding Lúghnasadh itself, some of them still very much alive today, and forming a consistent body of symbolic material with obviously ancient roots (since, as we have seen, the date already had significance in Roman times). Throughout Ireland, but also in many other parts of the Celtic and ex-Celtic world, the celebration of Lúghnasadh (or however else the feast of the Harvest may be called) is centred on the high places of individual territories: the Mercurii montes of ancient times.32 Most auspicious as Lúghnasadh sites are high hills that nevertheless have a source of water near their top -- because they are able to join the Above and the Below, the sky-realm of the gods of culture and the watery Underworld (the Fomorian realm). First fruits of cultivated crops, as well as examples of wild crops (usually bilberries), were brought to the site to be blessed and to be shared by the community. In modern times this agricultural core of the festival is all that has survived, but formerly, when Celtic lands were under native rulers, Lúghnasadh was the occasion of major assemblies where legal matters were settled, political problems were discussed, craftsmen, artists and entertainers got a chance to show off their talents, and sporting events brought scattered communities together. All this was under the patronage of Lúgh (the 9th-century Sanas Cormaic explains 'Lúghnasadh' as "the assembly of Lúgh"),33 who was said to have instituted the games in memory of either his wives or of his foster-mother Tailtiu, whose name (from Old Celtic Talantiu, "The Great One of the Earth") and life-history give her a special affinity with the Harvest.34 But it is Lúgh alone who allows the Harvest to actually begin, by setting the right conditions for it and by combating the hostile elements in the Land that are trying to destroy the crops.

Many scholars have interpreted the name Lugus as a derivation of the Indo-European root *leuk- "light", which also gave rise to Latin lux. This is partially confirmed by the meaning of lleu in Welsh (especially as part of (go)leu "light").35 As a result, and helped along by Victorian scholars' obsession with "solar myths", it was taken for granted that Lúgh was a solar god. Moreover, a comparison between Lúgh's title Lámhfhada ("long-armed") and the title Prithupâni ("broad-handed") given to the Vedic god Savitr (the god of the first light of day) seemed to confirm such a notion36 -- and it is now firmly entrenched in popular literature about Irish "mythology". However, traditional, ritual-associated ideas about Lúgh show no trace of this. Lúghnasadh is a day on which thunderstorms with plentiful rain are expected and welcomed.37 They provide a respite from the fierce summer heat that endangers the crops and encourages insect pests. The pitiless sun is Balor's scorching eye, and the spear of Lúgh is needed to tame its power. Lúgh is called Lonnbeimnech ("fierce striker") as well as Lámhfhada.38 Celtic "Mercury" is sometimes shown not only with his spear but with the easily recognizable Indo-European thunder-hammer.39 In Mayo the Lúghnasadh thunderstorms where seen as the battle between Lúgh and Balor: 'Tá gaoth Logha Lámhfhada ag eiteall anocht san aer. 'Seadh, agus drithleogaí a athar. Balor Béimeann an t-athair" ("The wind of Lúgh Long-arm is flying in the air tonight. Yes, and the sparks of his father [sic]. Balor Béimeann is the father").40 From these and other examples it is abundantly clear that Lugus has his domain in storm rather than in sunlight, and that if his name has any relation to "light" it more properly means "lightning-flash" (as in Breton luc'h and Cornish lughes). This is the principal function of his invincible spear. Although there may be some thematic relation between the titles of Lúgh and Savitr, they are clearly not equivalents of each other.

Central to the Lúghnasadh ritual in its oldest form was an enactment of the myth of the season. Certainly some version or other of Cath Maige Tuired would have been the most popular material for this in early Ireland (even though the literary sources had the battle -- like virtually all supernatural events -- taking place on Samhain!), but a huge number of variants were possible. A person playing the role of Lúgh -- or of a local saint or hero who had taken on Lúgh's attributes -- would fight against the various monsters sent against him by the Fomorian god of the Land, and eventually triumph over the god of the Land himself. In modern Ireland the god of the Land is almost always Crom Dubh ("The Bent Black One" -- the holiday is often called Domhnach Croim Dhuibh -- "Crom Dubh's Sunday" -- after him), and one of the principal adversaries he sends against his challenger is a great bull41 (unlike horses, who symbolize the power of the Tribe, cattle represent the Land: cows are its nurturing aspect, but bulls show its destructive side). Lúgh's victory, in some cases, may have been dramatized as leaping over a stone head. "The Gaulish figure of the mounted cavalier prancing over a head emerging from the ground,or over a giant emerging from the ground, seems to illustrate this myth and may even be a representation of an acted rite."42

As we have mentioned, the myth could be presented in many different ways. One of the most striking involves the Cornish tales of "Jack the Tinkard" which were enacted on the occasion of Morvah Fair, one of the greatest Lúghnasadh celebrations outside Ireland.43 This is a very long and complex narrative dealing with "giants", which in Cornish folklore is a conventional way of referring to the old Fomorian gods. The beginning of the story tells how a hero named "Tom" defeated a local giant by battling him with a cartwheel (recalling the thunder-wheel of early Celtic art). "Tom" becomes established and prosperous, but is eventually challenged by "Jack", another hero, who carries a hammer and wears a black bull's hide that weapons cannot pierce. "Jack" agrees to cooperate with "Tom", and goes on to demonstrate that he is the master of all crafts, dazzling the ignorant and slow-witted "Tom" in the process (and providing an echo of Lúgh's entrance into Tara). In order to win the hand of "Tom"'s daughter, "Jack" then successfully fights (mostly through trickery) other destructive giants of the area. Many versions of the Lúghnasadh myth do indeed focus on winning a woman's hand, or (in ritual terms) persuading her to serve as Queen of the Harvest. Often the implication is that she is a Fomorian woman, a power of the fertility of the Land who defects to the side of the Tribe -- and perhaps this would include Lúgh's mother, Eithne, whose name could be understood as "kernel".

Another version of this myth, which illustrates how simple and humble the imagery can become without changing anything that is important to it, is the famous Scottish story Cath nan Eun ("The Battle of the Birds"), collected in several versions by John Francis Campbell in the early 19th century.44 A wren offers to help protect a farmer's crops, but he is immediately challenged by a mouse, who of course wants the harvest for himself and his kind. The wren musters an army of all the birds of heaven, but the mouse gathers together an equivalent army of rodents and creeping things. A great battle is fought, and the hero of the tale, Mac Rìgh Cathair Shìomain (a "king's son" and therefore a destined holder of sovereignty), decides to attend it but arrives when it is almost over, and the only combatants left are a raven and a serpent. He chooses to aid the raven, and in exchange receives magical aid in defeating a giant and marrying the giant's daughter. Just as the adventures start, the raven turns into a handsome young man and gives the king's son a bag filled with magical treasures, reminiscent of the corrbolg, or "Mercury"'s bag. The essence of the myth is preserved completely here: the battle between the birds and the creeping things is the battle between Above and Below, the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomhóraigh, the Tribe and the Land, over the ownership of the Harvest. Both the wren and the raven have ties to Lúgh, the leader of the Danann side; and he here fulfills his usual role by restoring the rightful ruler and pairing him off with the woman who is the fertility of the Land.

The wren serves to remind us of an aspect of Lúgh that is too often eclipsed by his heroic appearance in so many of the Irish literary tales: that he is lú, "little", easily dismissed before his powers have been revealed. The wren, too, despite his tiny size, is a "king", the king of all birds: in a folktale known throughout Eurasia (including the Celtic lands) he gains that title through trickery, stowing away on the eagle's back during a contest of which bird can fly the highest, and then flying up when the eagle has exhausted himself and can go no higher. The symbolism of the wren helps us understand one of the symbols associated with Lugus in his earliest manifestations: the mistletoe, who is the smallest of all trees, yet grows at the top of the tallest tree, the oak, and is thus closest of all the trees to heaven. It is also green in winter, when the oak itself is bare, so that it manifests life even in the midst of death. There is a striking similarity between Lugus and Vishnu, who first appears in the Vedas as very much a "little" god, but one capable of saving the day during the great battle against the fertility-withholding monster Vrtra because of his unique talent of creating new space in the universe with his steps -- a talent that would, after centuries of reflection on its theological implications, turn him into one of the major gods of Hinduism, and even into the equivalent of God himself. In the same way, Lugus' role in saving the Harvest through his gift of uniting opposites and moving between realms would, after the same type of theological reflection, make him into (as Caesar tells us) the Celts' "main god".

For there is no doubt that Lugus related to the vast majority of Celtic people in the most intimate and satisfying way. However much he may have been associated with the first-function domain of kingship, his involvement with all of the functions of Celtic society made him a cooperative protector for any individual, from the highest noble to the humblest craftsman. The weaker members of the community would have felt a special affinity for a god "who succeeds by the skill of his more subtle magic rather than through the brute force of his physical strength."45 Wherever doors were to be opened, exchanges were to be made, boundaries were to be crossed, his special gifts could be invoked with profit (the Lebor Gabála, interestingly, makes Lúgh the inventor of chess (fidchill) and ball-games (líathroit)46 -- both of which are games that involve the interpenetration of opposite realms). For the poet or the intellectual seeker, the lightning-flash of his spear was the insight (imbas) that pierces the darkness of chaos, so that he was truly Amairgen's "dé delbas do chind codnu" ("the god that sets the head on fire"). He could also father heroes on the earthly plane -- such as Cú Chulainn who, like his father, had a threefold birth, and whose special weapon, the gae Bolga, was, on one level, merely an exotic earthly weapon (the "Belgic spear"), but on another was the "lightning spear" his father wields in the heavens. Even the coming of Christianity could not eradicate the hold that Lugus had on the hearts of ordinary people in the Celtic lands. Sulpicius Severus, in his biography of St. Martin of Tours, notes that, of all the gods of Gaul, the saint found Mercury "infestior" -- "most troublesome, hardest to get rid of".47 Outside Ireland the imagery associated with St. Michael the Archangel -- the young warrior triumphing over the Satanic dragon -- was naturally assimilated into the lore of Lugus, so that many Mercurii montes became "St. Michael's Mounts", and St. Michael was given a special role in relation to the Harvest season.

Even today, the spirit of Lugus pervades the Celtic world, second only to Brigit in significance and accessibility. Trickster, psychopomp, experimenter, mover between worlds, granter of success and wealth through intelligent manipulation, and granter of continuity through change, his many gifts remain at the disposal of those who trouble to seek him out.

More from   http://www.mythicalireland.com/mythology/tuathade/lugus.html