Brú na Bóinne- Celtic LocationLocation · Landmark"The Palace of the Boyne"

The Dwelling on the Boyne

Brú na Bóinne, the dwelling on the River Boyne, was the chief síd mound of Ireland and the residence of the Tuatha Dé Danann's greatest gods. Located in the Boyne Valley in what is now County Meath, the complex comprises immense passage tombs whose construction predates the Celtic peoples by millennia. Newgrange (Síd in Broga) is surrounded by massive kerbstones carved with spiral, lozenge, and chevron patterns. In mythology this was no tomb but a living palace, a seat of divine power and a gateway to the Otherworld.

The River Boyne, named for the goddess Bóand who created it, curves around the complex in a great bend, enclosing the sacred precinct in a loop of water. The mound itself rises from the river plain, a white-quartz-faced dome that would have blazed in sunlight.

The Dagda's Possession

After the defeat of the Fomorians at the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, the Tuatha Dé Danann distributed the síd mounds of Ireland among themselves. The Dagda, as chief of the gods, took the greatest prize: Brú na Bóinne. The distribution is recounted in De Gabáil in t-Sída (The Taking of the Síd): after the Milesians conquered the surface of Ireland, the Tuatha Dé Danann withdrew into the hollow hills, and the Dagda assigned each deity their underground dwelling.

The Dagda possessed a cauldron that could never be emptied and two divine pigs, one perpetually alive, one perpetually roasted, ensuring that feasting at the Brú never ceased. Fruit trees bore fruit in every season and vats of ale never ran dry.

The Conception of Aengus

The Dagda desired Bóand, the goddess of the River Boyne and wife of Elcmar, who also dwelt at the Brú. To conceal their union, the Dagda sent Elcmar on an errand and caused the sun to stand still for nine months, so that Elcmar perceived only a single day passing. During this enchanted interval, the Dagda and Bóand conceived and bore a son: Aengus, called Óg ("the Young") or Mac ind Óc ("Son of the Young Couple"). Aengus was fostered in secret by Midir at Brí Léith until he was old enough to claim his inheritance.

Aengus Wins the Brú

When Aengus grew to manhood and learned of his parentage, he went to the Dagda and demanded his patrimony. The Dagda, unwilling to surrender his dwelling, offered Aengus the Brú for a day and a night.

Aengus accepted. When the Dagda returned to reclaim it, Aengus refused to leave. He argued that all of time consists of "a day and a night," and since the Dagda had given him the Brú for that duration, he had given it forever. The Dagda, bound by the logic of his own grant, had no choice but to yield. Aengus became lord of Brú na Bóinne.

Bóand and the River Boyne

The Metrical Dindsenchas recounts how Bóand approached the forbidden Well of Segais, a source of otherworldly knowledge guarded by hazel trees whose nuts dropped into the water and were eaten by the salmon of wisdom. No one was permitted to approach the well except Nechtan and his three cupbearers.

Bóand, defying the prohibition, walked three times around the well in a counter-sunwise direction, challenging its power. The waters rose against her, tearing away her thigh, her hand, and her eye. She fled toward the sea, and the pursuing waters became the River Boyne. Bóand was drowned at the river's mouth.

The Winter Solstice

The passage tomb at Newgrange is aligned so that on the mornings surrounding the winter solstice, a beam of sunlight enters through a roof-box above the entrance and travels the full length of the nineteen-meter passage to illuminate the inner chamber. For approximately seventeen minutes, the chamber, which exists in total darkness for the rest of the year, is flooded with light. The Neolithic builders achieved this around 3200 BCE, positioning the roof-box so the light enters at an angle calculated to compensate for the slight slope of the passage floor.

Étaín in the Brú

The Tochmarc Étaíne (The Wooing of Étaín) places key events at the Brú. Aengus shelters Étaín there after she has been transformed into a fly by the jealous Fúamnach, keeping her in a chamber of crystal where she lives among fragrant herbs and flowers. But Fúamnach summons a wind that blows Étaín from the Brú, and she wanders Ireland for seven years before falling into a cup of wine and being swallowed by the wife of Étar, an Ulster chieftain. She is reborn a thousand years after her first birth, with no memory of her former life or her time in the síd. Midir, who loved her, eventually reclaimed her from the mortal world and brought her back through the mound.