Entrance to the Mound of the Hostages
I didn’t really find the Hill of Tara that interesting. I am sure that the Hill of Tara is really as important as they say it is, but as far as sight seeing goes, I didn’t really find it that interesting. Perhaps if they offered a balloon ride on top the hill so people can properly see how it looks like from the air. Unfortunately, the constantly powerful winds in this area make that a bad idea. I just had to content myself with the imagining how it really looks like from the top. I have seen photos from the introduction that was give us at the entrance but nothing beats seeing it for real.
Inside the Mound of the Hostages on the Hill of Tara
On my way back I passed by a mound which I saved for last since it was on the way. It is one of the few prominent features of the Hill of Tara. This is the Mound of the Hostages. It looks suspiciously like the Newgrange Stone Age Passage Tomb but this was on a much smaller scale. The Mound of the Hostages is a passage tomb and just like Newgrange, it is only illuminated in certain times of the year, in this case it was the Celtic holidays of Samhain and Imbolc, the end of harvest (around November) and the start of spring (around February) respectively. I wasn’t sure why it can be illuminated two times in a year but that is what the introduction told us. Unlike Newgrange, there were a lot more bodies found here and a lot of them were cremated. Maybe this was a commoner’s grave which explains the large number of bodies found. You cannot go in the Mound of the Hostages passage tomb, as it is locked with a gate. It is very short anyway and you can see everything from the outside.
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