At the second battle of Moytura Lugh killed his fearsome grandfather using - and this part varies - a slingshot, or a spear. Right through the eye.
What has this got to do with the hill and mound at Knock Iveagh? Knock Iveagh is a place where, like the Tuatha De Dannan of Irish myth, the people went 'into the hill'. They didn't just 'go into' the cairn in ceremonial urns, their remains were scattered amongst the cairnstones themselves. They didn't just 'go into' the cairn either, the summit of Knock Iveagh itself was littered with their burnt offerings. They literally put themselves and perhaps even their homes into their 'sacred' hill. Then their descendants went there over and over, respectfully, for millennia, just as we did. The 'battle' for Knock Iveagh is something of a David and Goliath/ Lugh and Balor. The Friends of Knock Iveagh are regular people. In fact, a lot of the hard work behind the scenes has been done by mothers with young children. Not archaeological experts, not politicians, not professional planners, 'just' very ordinary working families who love the hill. We are up against a real-life one-eyed giant at Knock Iveagh, and determined developers with deep pockets and 'scary lawyers'. It's as simple as that. At times we have been criticised for not getting out in front of diggers, or for not heading up there and taking direct action. That just wasn't an option for us. Most of us went there as children with our families, and we took our own families and friends there until very recently. We went there freely and unobstructed. It is where we went to clear our heads, it made us feel good. We miss going there. The ancient hill is still 'sacred' to us. Because of a series of monumental (!) failures by the 'professionals' this area has come close to losing a key piece of its history. But we remembered and we told the story. We are not fighting with slingshots, but the battle is the same. It is time that the people who WE PAY to ensure lawful planning in our country do the right thing, put an end to the desecration of Knock Iveagh, and ensure that it can be enjoyed again by everyone. Please help us, and share the story of Knock Iveagh with your friends. #protectthesacred #saveknockiveagh *If you want to learn more about the story of Lugh, we highly recommend this beautiful book. The stories are simply told and it's perfect for children! 'The heroic sagas of Ireland are great treasures of our cultural inheritance. They recall for us our ancestors and remind us of the ancient bond that was forged between the people and the land.' Read more about Lugh and Balor here.
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As followers of our social media will know, it has been a very busy and exciting few weeks for the Friends of Knock Iveagh... While those of you who check Facebook and Twitter may be aware of SOME of the details, you likely won't know a whole lot about the background to our recent discoveries so this blog is a brief attempt to fill you in. It's pouring with rain today, but until recently we've been experiencing the driest spell of weather in a generation. This type of drought leads to colour changes in the crops and grass which can outline the 'ghosts' of archaeological structures no longer visible above the ground as 'crop marks' - especially when viewed from above*... We asked Department for Communities: Historic Environment Division to undertake urgent aerial/ geophysical research into the area around Knock Iveagh at the first possible opportunity in early September 2017. That didn't happen. We felt sure that there was unrecorded archaeology in the lands around the cairn, but nobody seemed to believe us despite there being long-forgotten images of additional crop marks recorded at Knock Iveagh (Archaeological Survey of County Down pub. 1966). We were pretty much told that the HED would only put their name to whatever was already written down. There didn't seem to be much interest in 'rescue' research, very possibly because of time and money, but nonetheless.... Where there is a barrow and a cairn, an enormous 'Royal' enclosure (to the north), and ring ditches, all located around a hill known to have been used for inaugurations, well, that's the bones of an important ritual landscape right there, surely? Are we really just going to let folk turn this area into a wind farm without a fight? Well we have been lucky, and we have been gifted lots of time, experience and huge amounts of knowledge by well-respected professional archaeologists to whom we will be forever indebted. With their help the Friends of Knock Iveagh have been able to piece back-together something absolutely remarkable - a landscape full of 'multi-period archaeology' stretching more than 5000 years from the Neolithic period right up to the Famine. This landscape around Knock Iveagh bears witness to some of the earliest wheat-farming in Europe; and includes castles, crannogs, and standing stones... A large Bronze-Age horn was recovered close-by offered to watery Gods at Ardbrin bog. Watching over all of this, above an unusual 'ritual' layer of ash and bone, stands one of the most accessible and oldest cist cairns in the North... Now we have added to this picture two more vast ring-shaped enclosures, what looks like a building with possibly bawn-esque features, as well as numerous previously unlisted raths and ring-forts. It was all there - all we had to do was look... This Lughnasadh, thanks to Lugh himself (aka the 'Sun'!), we have truly been gifted a window into our past. It is a ritual past, a Royal past, and a past which will no doubt deepen our understanding of ourselves and the land we all share. So no, we are not 'clutching at straws' (as one jaded civil servant so kindly put it), we are 'realising the value of our historic environment'. And we are not going away - we are going to Europe. #saveknockiveagh *We would like to express our sincere thanks to Patrick of PAK Aerial Media for his wonderful, professional drone images, as well as our own pet-drone: 'Balor of the piercing eye'!
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September 2019
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