The Bend in the Boyne (The Irish Treasures Series)

Below the village of Slane in County Meath and above the port and town of Drogheda, the river Boyne takes a dramatic loop, encompassing an elongated ridge on whose summit stand the great Stone Age passage-tomb cemeteries of Knowth, Dowth and Newgrange. Today this area is best known as the Bend of the Boyne and is Ireland's first Archaeological Park. In former times it was known as Brugh na Boinne and was a centre of megalithic tomb-buidng and the location of the most important group of ceremonial 'henge' monuments outside of Britain; at the heart of the origins of Irish Christianity; the home of Early Christian kings and the battleground of European kings. The Bend of the Boyne presents an overview of five millennia of human activity in the Boyne Valley as evidenced in the physical remains left behind by the different peoples who occupied its rich farmland.