This beautiful image comes from shadowsandstone.com. I found it on the Irish Medieval History page on Facebook. It shows a man crouching in the rays of the sun which, on the winter solstice, shines through a hole above the entrance to the tomb, along the corridor to illuminate the central room. It's a magical moment, and it's one of those things that I'd love to be able to get to one day. People who have been lucky enough to be chosen to stand in the central room of the tomb have said that it is a spiritual experience.
Newgrange is one of those "thin places" of the world, where you can become aware of something much bigger than yourself and mundane matters. It's also over 5000 years old, and the builders (who didn't even have the use of metal tools) got the angles of the sun exactly right for their purposes. No-one knows exactly what they believed, or the original purpose of the sunlight entering the tomb, but they left behind something which has lasted all this time, which we can still share in.
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