Dublin

At Newgrange today and read a bizarre but intriguing booklet about its astronomy and mythology. Lots of links from saints back to gods, even the stories about Paddy seem to be derived from older stories of the sun-god. It is revolutionary to think of stories even of Patrick’s triumph over the old beliefs as having come from older sun-god traditions. This is the ultimate victory of a continuum of belief, expressing itself differently in different ages: historical “fact” becomes unimportant because there is a bigger picture – an underlying, rumbling, primal breath, an undercurrent. Melchizadek as a remnant of an older mythology, still making his way into the pages of the Bible. And Jesus, rising in the east …

There was a burnt-out car wreck in a back street of Downpatrick, about 200 metres from Patrick’s resting place. Orangemen were marching today near the border. And standing inside Newgrange, where the chamber has been so well built that no water has made its way in in 6000 years, 1690 really does seem like just yesterday.