The Muckross House: a colossal crib

             Just as the massive Muckross establishment appears with awe beyond measure, the Muckross house is marked with an intriguing history. The Irish Studies Program paid a visit to the storied house in order to have a guided tour through the inside as well as explore the Muckross Peninsula. The building of the Muckross House commenced in 1839 by Henry Arthur and Mary Herbert and was completed in 1843. This predates the Irish Famine by two years. The Herbert family was long associated with land in the area dating to the 1770s and it continued in this way until financial strife rendered the family unable to acquire loans. Notably, in 1861, Queen Victoria visited Ireland and stayed at this estate. Many renovations took place in order to accommodate the Queen’s party in the most paramount way possible. Perhaps, this was one of the factors leading to financial strife. Ultimately, the estate was forfeited to Standard Life Assurance Company in 1897. After passing through the hands of the Guinness family for several years, Mr. William Bowers Bourn, a wealthy American, purchased the Muckross property as a wedding gift for his daughter in 1910. Bourn’s daughter, Maud, died in 1929 and in 1932, her widowed husband, Mr. Arthur Rose Vincent, wrote to Mr. Eamon De Valera conveying that he intended to present the Muckross property to the Irish nation. Indeed, the estate was to be maintained as a national park for the enjoyment of the public for which it now serves at Killarney National Park. Being guided through the home and learning of the details and people associated with the land was a gleaning experience for all of us.

            Observing the outward appearance of the home and the land around it renders one feeling quite small and uncomprehending of how someone could live so splendidly. The outside of the home appears powerful, yet, elegant at the same time. Upon entering the inside, the story continues. An incalculable number of mounted animal heads, mainly Irish Red Deer, hovered above our heads in several rooms. Hunting was one of the Herbert’s hobbies. Chandeliers, giant doorways, high ceilings, and enormous beds complement the house. Moreover, the artistry of dressers, cabinets, woodwork, the chessboard, a game board, the pool table, tables, chairs, windows and mirrors certainly add to the elegance of the home. Many items were hand carved and are composed of special materials. For example, one of the windows is made of crystal.

            The significance of the history lies in the amount of respect that was given to Queen Victoria. Despite her stay of only a few days, major renovations took place and were a burden on the owners even amidst their wealth. The Queen’s visit in 1861 is only one of four visits to Ireland, but it seems that each visit to Ireland was quite warm and welcome despite the animosity occurring between English and Irish. Lastly, the preservation of the estate displays historically how such wealthy people lived and the contrite contrast between the wealthy and poor, which we still see today. One should be reminded that the home was finished two years prior to the potato famine, which had devastating effects on Ireland, specifically those of the lower class.

            On top of the rich history behind this estate, it has modern significance because it preserves a piece of the story of Ireland. It may not represent Ireland or the people of Ireland as a whole, but it allows us to view life through the perspective of wealthy and prominent figures. Moreover, visiting the house offers us a more keen understanding of the respect and power that the Victorian monarch possessed. And in this we can appreciate why the estate has been preserved as part of the Killarney National Park.

            Upon personal reflection, people in our group each had certain aspects that instigated some type of feeling or memory. One member felt nostalgia and a longing for the times of the Muckross house. Another underscores the size and components of each room; each room had a unique purpose or quality. For example, the billiard room was meant only for the men to socialize in. Furthermore, another room had a cabinet that kept tea locked up because tea was rare and expensive at the time. Collectively, we all saw sophistication in various ways. The servant system illustrates this well. While all the servants stayed in rooms in the basement, there was a well-engineered bell system in the basement hallway; each servant was designated a bell and each bell was linked through a wire to a specific room. Thus the servants could be summoned from anywhere in the house. It is important to note that each bell was different in size so the servants knew based on sound when they were being summoned. More sophistication is seen in the kitchen and ice storage because ice had to be imported and strategically stored.

          Many aspects contribute to the elegance, power, artistry, and sophistication of the Muckross house and its history and one cannot fathom the beauty of the land around it until he sees it. Our site visit was a good way of seeing one part of Irish history through a lens other than our own. All in all, the families that owned the land, the servants that labored there, Queen Victoria’s visit, Irish history, and our visit boils down to relationship. That is the intangible quality that this visit offered us; the significance of relationship under any circumstance. 

  Outside of Muckross house

 View looking outside behind the house

 Vestibule

         Library

The Book of Kells: An Ornate Copy of the Gospels

            Our group took a trip to Trinity College in Dublin to view the Book of Kells. This book is an illuminated manuscript copy of the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) in Latin dating from ca. 800. A community in Iona endured the Vikings’ attack and created a monastery in Kells, County Meath, which is where this book was made, although the specific monks’ names are unknown.

The Book of Kells is made up of four volumes written on vellum, which is calf skin. Minerals from across the globe were used to make up the array of vibrant pigmentations used for the text and illustrations. The book contains illustrations of many animals, humans, Celtic knots, and patterns. Unique large designs were even used to indicate mistakes, rather than simply blotting them out or removing the page.

The historical significance of the Book of Kells is great. The Book of Kells is a physical demonstration of the continuance of Christianity throughout the medieval age. It also serves as an example of a work from a scriptorium. The authenticity of the gospels is also reinforced as the Book of Kells is yet another early copy of the exact same scriptures we consider to be authentic and inerrant today.

Members of our group expressed that they found the Book of Kells to be awe-inspiring and stunning. They were especially taken aback by the remarkable detail, especially in contrast with the little detail given to prints of books today. It was amazing to us to consider the awe with which the monks must have held the scriptures, considering the vast amount of time they spent elaborating on and detailing the Book of Kells.

Since we were unable to take pictures of the Book of Kells, these were obtained from the Wikipedia page about the Book of Kells:

This is the page that opens the Gospel of John.

This picture from the Book of Kells is of Christ enthroned.

This shows the intricacy of design put even into the text.

This picture shows the complexity of the designs in the Book of Kells.

Monasterboice: St. Buithe and Beyond

On the same day that we visited Newgrange, February 11^th, we also visited Monasterboice, a Romanesque-style monastic center located in county Louth. It was founded by St. Buithe in the late fifth century, and was an important center of spirituality and learning for a number of centuries. According to a plaque that we saw at the site, the two churches that remain at Monasterboice today were probably built at the end of the fourteenth century or later.

The round tower at the site rests over the graves of some of those who lived there and the descendants of those who did, the top crumbled away in the aftermath of the fire that burned it in 1097. Apart from serving as the belfry, which was a main function of ancient monastic round towers in Ireland, this particular round tower was also presumably functioning as a treasury of manuscripts and wealth accumulated by the monastery during its heyday, because when the round tower was burned in the great fire, the books and treasures of the monastery were lost as well.

The great monuments of Monasterboice are its high crosses. Carved into the stone of the crosses are low-relief biblical narratives, which may have been used to tell the stories from the Bible to a congregation. Muiredach’s Cross, widely known as one of the most perfect high crosses in the country of Ireland, is named after an abbot who lived at the site, most likely Muiredach mac Domhnaill, who died in 923. This cross is 5.5 meters high, and is covered in sculpture that depicts both Old and New Testament stories. The west cross at Monasterboice is the tallest high cross in Ireland.

This monastic site is imbued with the same sort of historical significance that is present in Glendalough, the monastic site that we visited and reflected on nearly two weeks ago. It represents a robust integration of faith and scholarship, and a way of community life that is holistic in nature. In monastic communities such as these, people’s physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual needs were all met by the rhythm of daily life therein—there were times for both solitude and interpersonal interaction, and the early Christian could here find a place of peace and of purpose. Even today, people are still seeking out places where such primal needs can be met.

            As we walked amongst the graves and snapped pictures of the round tower and the intricately sculpted high crosses, we certainly appreciated both the aesthetic beauty of the place—the invigorating greenness of the valleys below and the sparse yet striking outlines of the graves, monuments, and leafless trees, but our personal reactions struck deeper than that. We also appreciated what the remains of Monasterboice symbolize about the ability of Christians to come together and form a stronghold that promotes life and life to the fullest, a life lived in mutual support, a life, ultimately, in and with Christ.

 a high cross at Monasterboice

 tree, cross, round tower

 details of a high cross

 more details--biblical narrative

Newgrange: Echoes of an Ancient Way

Last Monday, the 11^th of February, the ISP made a trip to Newgrange, a site highly significant within the context of Irish history. Newgrange is an ancient burial mound located in the Boyne Valley of County Meath. Dating from around 3200 BCE, it predates the pyramids at Giza by five hundred years, and Stonehenge by one thousand years. It is a potent example of Neolithic architecture, as well as of Megalithic architecture (“mega” meaning large and “lithic” meaning stone). Set atop a hill, its stone forms a dramatic contrast to the greenness of the surrounding landscape, and as it first came into view on that cold and blustery day, our full attention was commanded by its presence, such a potent illustration of both brute strength and startling dexterity.

Not much is known about the people who lived at the time that Newgrange was built, but we do know that they were intellectually sophisticated, and that they were socially, technologically, and linguistically advanced. We know this in part due to the ingenuity and creativity that went into the building and design of Newgrange. We were amazed, for instance, by the fact that some of its stones were transported from up to seventy kilometers away from the actual site! The current speculation regarding this is that the builders may have used rafts to transport the large stones along the Boyne River, and then most likely moved them uphill to the site with the assistance of rolling logs. The people who lived at the time of Newgrange had a lifespan of between twenty-five and thirty-five years, which, in light of the fact that Newgrange construction must have taken about one hundred years to complete, means that three or four generations of builders were dedicated to its creation. The site was rediscovered in 1699, and in the twentieth century, Professor O’Kelly of Cork performed extensive research and even some restoration of the structure, going so far as to reconstruct the outer wall in a plausible interpretation of what the original stone arrangement may have looked like.

The very architectural design of the site is highly telling in terms of the keenness and resourcefulness of these Neolithic Irish people—the fact that builders employed the technique of corbeling (stacking large stones gradually higher and closer to the center of the structure with the help of smaller packing stones to close any gaps) proves very successful in keeping the inside of the mound dry and sheltered. 

Structurally, the outer wall of Newgrange is made up primarily of quartz and limestone, and the inside is divided up into a three-chambered cruciform shape. Much of the tomb as a whole is made up of a stone called greywacke, a sort of gray-green sandstone. Because the interior is so small, and because the ash-and-bone remains from only five humans have been discovered within the site, it is theorized that burial within Newgrange was reserved for some elite section of society.

Particularly worth noting on a symbolic level are the roof box and the decorative work done on both the inside and the outside of the structure. The Neolithic people in the time of Newgrange were very attentive to the seasons and the position of the sun, most likely in conjunction with their religious beliefs. They must have watched the heavens intently, for they understood celestial patterns well enough to construct a roof box above the passage graves in Newgrange. Each day from the seventeenth to the twenty-third of December (the days surrounding the winter solstice), this roof box allows light to flood into the chamber for seventeen minutes. The polytheistic people of Newgrange were certainly deeply religious; in fact, it is widely thought that the site did not serve simply as a place to bury the dead, but also as a sort of religious center, a place outside of which the inhabitants of the area would gather to practice religious rites and hold religious ceremonies. The decorative work that was incorporated into the architecture at Newgrange is intriguing because although it is clearly intentional, its significance remains mysterious. The techniques of incision and picking were used to carve designs into the rock, and the fact that there are recurring motifs within these instances of carved artwork indicates that the designs are not a form of abstract art, but rather art whose symbols most likely had a range of meanings. The symbol of the three connected spirals found in multiple places at the site, for instance, is sometimes interpreted as a way of communicating the cyclic nature of existence, the interconnectivity between life, death, and rebirth.

Newgrange, ancient though it may be, does carry significance through to the development of modern Ireland. It stands as a testament to the long history of mankind in Ireland, and demonstrates that although the religious landscape in Ireland has changed significantly over the years, some of the oldest Irish civilizations have lived with a strong sense of spirituality and a deep awareness that there existed beyond them something greater than themselves.

The personal reactions of our group to Newgrange varied. Although we are in many senses detached from the culture present at Newgrange, we still possessed a desire to connect with it in some meaningful way, and this desire for connection emerged in our responses. For some, the limited lifespan of the Neolithic builders really hit home. In the current day, it seems that the twenties and thirties mark only the beginnings of a long life, and yet for the builders of Newgrange, the twenties and thirties marked the ends of theirs. This was a sobering realization, and it helped us to appreciate the dedication that went into completing the extensive project of Newgrange even more. Many were also struck by the high levels of sophistication demonstrated by the Neolithic people in designing and building Newgrange; the massiveness of the structure, particularly for its time, awed us, as well as the way in which the art and design were incorporated into the burial ground. Some were moved by the religious knowledge evoked by the site—that spirituality has so long and so deeply influenced the human race, and that these people of early history were seeking after spiritual truth with avid intentionality via their religious practices at Newgrange. Needless to say, we left the spiritual and ritual place of Newgrange having discovered a great deal not only about life in 3200 BCE, but about the ripple effects of that ancient way of life for modern Ireland, and perhaps even for our own personal journeys of faith and intellect. 

 the outer wall at Newgrange

 the entrance to the burial mound

 an example of the three-spiral design mirrored many times in the rocks of Newgrange

the site from a slight distance