
Nikon d7000, 35mm f1.8g lens
Knockroe passage tomb, county kilkenny
irish landscape photography
Knockrow passage tomb is located about 15km from Callan. county kilkenny and I have visited this tomb many time, The images in this post are from Monday this week, it was a warm and sunny October afternoon and a perfect day for walking around the area the tomb is located in.
Knockroe passage tomb, County Kilkenny was excavated in 1990. It has some 30 decorated stones and could be connected to Newgrange in the Boyne Valley, the front of the cairn flanking the eastern tomb was decorated with a frieze of quartz. Also, like Newgrange, the roof-box in the western tomb allows the rays of the sun to pass along the upward-sloping passage at the Winter Solstice (21st December), when it illuminates a tall red-sandstone portal.
Unlike Newgrange however these rays pass through the roofbox at sunset rather than sunrise. The other aspect of Knockroe that makes it worth investigating is that until its discovery, the prior most southern site of its kind was at Baltinglass Hill in County Wicklow. And the fact that there are two tombs on the one site also marks it out as uncommon.
Two of the images below show a track that at some point in the past was cut through the centre of the tomb, for a farm on the hill just above, thankfully it looks like any damage was not to the most important parts of the site. but no one knows for sure what was removed.
Knockroe passage tomb : Gallery









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