Cairn S sunset at Lughnasa

Lughnasa sunset at Cairn S, with its passage stones illuminated. Cairn S is one of just three cairns at the Loughcrew complex of Neolithic passage-tombs in County Meath whose passage points towards the western aspect. In the 1980s, Martin Brennan and his team of observers noted that Cairn S was aligned with the setting sun at Bealtaine in early May and Lughnasa in early August. These were the old cross-quarter days, the halfway points (in days) between the solstices and the equinoxes. 

On the evening that this photo was taken, the sky was largely overcast. I had travelled to Loughcrew from Drogheda, an hour's drive, but thought I might be disappointed. However, a break in the clouds in the northwest allowed the sun to peep through, resulting in a dramatic and beautiful scene, which I attempted to capture in this image.

In the foreground, some faded megalithic art on a passage stone within Cairn S was illuminated using remote flash. It's hard to believe that this art was carved here over five thousand years ago, and that the ancient builders of Loughcrew observed sunsets at certain times of the year, carefully aligning their monuments to special places on the horizon.

I later discovered, in August 2022, that Cairn S also points to the cairn on Kesh Corran mountain in County Sligo, some 94 kilometres away.