Beltany Circle - history
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Sometime between 4,000 and 2,000 B.C. the inhabitants
of Ireland built great
megalithic tombs, chambers to the dead and evocative monuments to the gods
of the sky - the sun, the moon and the stars.
The finest and most spectacular are at Bru Na Boinne, the great
passage tombs of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, described by those who've
surveyed them as the greatest architectural achievements of tomb builders
in Europe. We know for certain that the Neolithic people who built megalithic monuments across the country worked to a template with local variations, conveying a people who
were organised, highly skilled and were visionaries. The inhabitants of
the land around what is now Raphoe, in County Donegal were such a people. Our ancient ancestors designed, constructed and used what we call
the Beltany Stone Circle, on a hilltop just outside Raphoe. They made
stone carvings most notably the Beltany Stone Head. They constructed a
burial mound on nearby Croaghan Hill overlooking Beltany and built many
megalithic tombs in the Kilmonaster plain between both hills.
But they left behind no design plans or written word about their
religious beliefs and practices that lasted as long as Christianity has
today. Their artistic skills perfected in the Bronze and Iron Age produced magnificent gold jewellery unequalled in Europe and their
elaborately designed funerary pottery is still being discovered in
farmlands to this day. What
we do know is that Beltany, Croaghan and the Kilmonaster grave complex was
an important cultural, religious and political landscape. As ancient landscapes come under threat from modern demands it is
important that those who
inherited these complex sites and have been entrusted with their safe
keeping should strive to ensure they are not neglected or forgotten.
Raphoe Community In Action with funding from the Heritage Council of Ireland have been engaged for the past two years in an archaeological research project at the Beltany Stone Circle to try to find out more about this enigmatic monument. Was it a great passage tomb, a ritual site to celebrate the changing seasons, could it have been an astronomical calendar for the neolithic farmers or was it the hallowed inaugural site of rulers of this kingdom? So strong were pagan practises in this area that as late as the 13th centuary papal documents refer to laymen being censored for worshipping idols, most likely of stone and possibly at Beltany.