INSIGHT Magazine - Rough Guide to Knowth

The Great Mound at Knowth is similar in scale to Newgrange and is surrounded by 18 smaller satellite tombs. The aerial view below, photographed last year, shows the construction work at the entrance to the Eastern Passage which is now complete. The site is now fully open to the public but, unlike Newgrange, visitors are not allowed down the 40 metre Eastern Passage. The metal bridge takes visitors to a room constructed just inside the mound, the passage which is closed off by a gate can be viewed as shown in the following image.

There is no public access to the 34 metre Western Passage, which runs almost in a straight line with the Eastern Passage, the chambers of the two passages are only a few metres apart. The tombs face due east and due west so there is probably a connection with the rising and setting sun at the equinoxes which occur around the 21st March and the 21st of September each year. While Knowth doesn't have a proven astronomical alignment, such as the illumination of the passage and chamber by the winter solstice sun at Newgrange, it has significantly more megalithic art than Newgrange. To quote from George Eogan's book "Knowth and the passage-tombs of Ireland"

Knowth has more than a quarter of the known megalithic art from all other areas of Europe, including Ireland. Knowth has about 45% of the total of known megalithic art from all Irish passage-tombs.Knowth exceeds by about 100 the total number of decorated stones from the other Brugh na Bóinne tombs. Mythical Ireland by Anthony Murphy is a good site to view the Megalithic Art at Knowth. The site has about 60 photographs of the art on Knowth kerbstones, most of the decorated stones are included.

The Passage Tombs at Knowth were constructed about 5000 years ago in the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, period.

A Bronze Age burial was discovered at Knowth. It had a Beaker pot next to some cremated human remains. The early Bronze Age people were known as the ‘Beaker People’ because of the style of pottery they used.

In the Iron Age, over 3,000 years after the tombs were built, a settlement was constructed at Knowth and an enclosure was built on top of the great mound. The house within this enclusure was protected by two concentric ditches and banks which were dug into the main mound. These ditches shortened the passages leading into the tombs by 4 metres and destroyed the original entrances.

In the early medieval period, between the 8th and 12th centuries AD. Knowth was the capital of one of Ireland’s many Kingdoms, that of North Brega. The people who lived at Knowth during this period built rectangular houses with stone foundations and souterrains, or underground passages, which they probably used for storage and refuge.

Following the Anglo-Norman invasion from Britain, the armies reached Knowth in 1175 and used it as a military base for their conquest of Meath.