Explore the Irish cave where Celts gathered for year's shortest day
05.10.2026, DPA
It's pitch black here inside the stone burial chamber and we feel uneasy as we gaze spellbound into the darkness.
But people sat here doing the same thing 5,000 years ago, as they gathered to mark the shortest day of the year in the depths of the misty Irish winter.
Suddenly, a beam of amber light shoots through the chamber, illuminating zigzag lines, diamonds and spirals on the stone walls.
A magical moment, even if created by human hands. "The sun god enters, bringing light and hope," says our guide, Gráinne Downey, inside the megalithic passage tomb at Newgrange. She fiddles with the controls for the electric lighting.
"On our tours, we simulate a unique phenomenon that has been taking place here in real life every year for millennia, on December 21 at 8:58 am."
For, at the exact moment of the winter solstice, the morning light streams through a crack in the wall and illuminates the burial chamber, hidden deep within the huge mound, for 17 minutes.
Some 200,000 tonnes of stone have been piled up there to form a vault – not for the claustrophobic. Only the 1960s that archaeologists began to study this complex Neolithic structure.
Newgrange has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993, as part of the Brú na Bóinne complex of prehistoric sacred sites in County Meath, in the central east of the island.
Belief in the Otherworld
"The Newgrange burial complex is older than the famous Stonehenge in England and even older than the Egyptian pyramids," says guide Peter Cole.
He strides towards the grass-covered, circular burial mounds at neighbouring Knowth, which also forms part of the Brú na Bóinne complex. As if in an ancient art gallery, huge sandstone blocks line the sacred sites. Spiral patterns are incised on them, giving a psychedelic feel.
"The power places of the ancient deities are still at work," says high priestess Treasa Kerrigan with conviction, at another sacred site, some 20 kilometres south-west of Brú na Bóinne.
Her long hair blows in the wind as she leads a group of visitors up the sacred hill of Tara. This former pagan place of worship was the seat of the High Kings of Ireland, a place of power and mystery.
At the very top, the King’s Stone, known as Lia Fáil, soars into the sky. Tourists touch the granite pillar and walk round it three times with their eyes closed, as the ritual goes, in order to feel the stone’s energy. Not everyone succeeds in doing so.
Many of the people here trust in the "Otherworld," where gods, elves and spirits are said to dwell. They see fairy trees – usually striking hawthorn bushes by the roadside – which are gateways to this non-material parallel world. Some in Ireland also say that felling such a magical tree brings terrible misfortune.
"Spiritually sensitive people from all over the world feel an inner peace at our places of power, as if they were connected to something greater," says Kerrigan. One such area is the Hill of Uisneach in County Westmeath, some 80 kilometres further west, which plays a central role on this tour of places of power.
This ritual gathering place is regarded as the mythical centre of Ireland. Celts used to celebrate fire festivals here.
Speaking prayers in Irish, the spiritual guide calls upon the gods of the Otherworld, whose signs she says she has personally witnessed.
She lights a fire.
A place of power with organic vegetables
A German couple, Gaby and Hans Wieland, came here in 1985 and created a place of power of a different sort in Ballincastle, County Sligo on the north-western coast of the island of Ireland.
They grow organic fruit and vegetables on their farm. "We feel the energy of nature in Ireland," says Hans Wieland. Herbs give off their scent in their lush garden, while aubergines, peppers, peach and tomato plants thrive in the greenhouse.
On a wild herb walk, herbalist Gaby Wieland plucks a much-maligned plant, a nettle. "Its seeds are extremely rich in energy!" she says. At her kitchen garden school, Neantóg which is Gaelic for "stinging nettle," she teaches people how to harness the power of wild plants, drawing on ancient Irish knowledge of nature.
Plenty more places provide energy, though not necessarily linked to the ancient places of power, such as the Kilcullen Seaweed Bath in Enniscrone on the Atlantic Ocean.
In the historic bathing establishment, bath attendant Brenda Smith scatters seaweed into ceramic bathtubs dating from 1912 and lets hot seawater run in.
"Our oldest customer is 96 years old," she says. "He swears by the healing power of the iodine-rich seaweed." And as soon as you immerse yourself in the silky water and pull the seaweed over you like a soft blanket, your worries do indeed seem to vanish.
A little further along the Atlantic coast, where Mount Knocknarea rises, and we are back in the land of myth. Visible from afar, we see a caern, the legendary tomb of Queen Maeve.
“The Celtic goddess Maeve is described as a relentless warrior who, on top of that, could have any man she wanted,” says Fiona Stapelton, an Irishwoman who guides hikers through a heathland and marsh landscape.
We head up the 327-metre mountain. At the summit, the wind whistles and rain clouds gallop across the sky. The 360-degree panoramic view must have impressed people 5,000 years ago as, towering over the vast landscape, they constructed the immense stone tomb, 60 metres in diameter.
Archaeologists have uncovered several tombs in the surrounding area, but deliberately left Maeve’s untouched. According to legend, the queen was buried standing upright with a sword, though no one has yet dared to open the burial mound.
That leaves the powerful legendary figure resting undisturbed in her Stone Age megalithic tomb, nourishing Ireland’s mythological heritage for the coming millennia.
