Archaeology handicrafts and science and technology sites to visit Leinster

Located on the banks of the Grand Canal, the former distillery of the Irish Whiskey Tullamore Dew is today a museum dedicated to the history of the city and to the birth of this world-renowned spirits. The old warehouse dating from the nineteenth century has been impeccably restored and provides a superb setting to discover the city's history.

The first floor is dedicated to Tullamore's history from its origins. A replica of the Book of Durrow, older than the Book of Kells, reminds us that the county of Offaly was an important monastic center in the early hours of Christianity in Ireland. Another section presents the history of the Grand Canal which, by connecting Tullamore to the Irish and global export-export network, has allowed the economic boom. It was by this means of water that distillery brought barrels of malt from Guinness to Dublin. The story of whiskey is told on the second floor. In 1947, he was joined by a second spirit: the Irish Mist liqueur, created according to an ancient Irish recipe that has been revived. Don't miss to see the small film in the counterpoint of the exhibition, which is found in French version.

The visit will not end without a tasting at the bar on the ground floor. Its wooded tavern atmosphere seduce, as well as its lunch card, which includes a delicious stew stew with, of course, a drop of whiskey in the sauce.

Necropolis of the Boyne Valley, Newgrange is certainly the most famous, most frequented and most impressive. It is one of the most beautiful corridors in the corridor (or «tomb pass») - a grave consisting of a long corridor and a burial chamber, covered with a tumulus - from all over Western Europe. The date (carbon 14) of Newgrange located its construction around 3,200 BC, thus prior to the construction of the pyramids of Egypt or the erection of Stonehenge…

When you arrive on the site, after a short minibus journey from the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Center, a massive butte comes into the hilly landscape of the Boyne, like a wave of green land. You are facing the mythical tomb of Newgrange.

Surrounded by a circle of 97 monoliths, a long 19-meter corridor leads to the three alcoves of the funeral chamber where, according to the current state of the hypotheses, the ashes of four or five people were buried. The entrance of the corridor is championed by a spectacular monolithic stone, beautifully engraved with spiral motifs, whose meaning remains unexplained today. Inside, several stones, either hidden or visible, are engraved with simple motifs: triangles, lodges, spiral. The roof of the room (6 meters high) is beautifully built to the point that there is no water infiltration through gutters drawn in stone.

The mystery of the winter solstice. In the enclosure's enclosure, a cavity lets you pass a radius of light on December 21, which will illuminate, for that day alone the solstice, the corridor from a small opening at the top of the entrance and the room. This discovery was due to Professor M.J.O 'Kelly who began excavations in Newgrange between 1962 and 1975. But how can we explain such astronomical precision so many millennia ago? A mystery among many others in this intriguing valley around the Boyne…

Knowth is the site of a tomb in corridor dating from Neolithic, belonging to the spectacular archeological complex of Brú na Bóinne. Although less famous than its neighbor Newgrange, with a few scraps, the Knowth site is to be discovered absolutely. His visit promises a journey in the past, through the ancestral culture of Ireland.

The main corridor dolmen houses two burial chambers located back and after two corridors of 34 and 40 m. The main tumulus is surrounded by another 18 dolmens in the corridor, with a smaller size… Which is the most fascinating in this site, it is the continuous succession "dwellings" of the neat period olithic (from 3,000 to 2,000 BC) to the occupation of Normandy (twelfth century). Thus, from the Christian period, from the I to XII centuries, the summit of the main tumulus served as a base of habitation: houses were built there. This passage, this geologic layer giving a vertical reading of history (first burial chamber, then Christian dwelling and Norman) is not without behaving, all the more so because the graveled stones surrounding this main tumulus bear the fingerprints of these different periods: spirals, hollows, neolithic circles to the figurative attempts of fish of the Christian era… While the site of Newgrange pays tribute to the Sun, Knowth, he, with his lunar cards engraved in stone, is dedicated to the Moon.

In the Boyne Valley, Dowth is a Neolithic (5,000-year-old) Neolithic (5,000-year-old) Neolithic slope, part of the Brú na Bóinne archeological complex, which comprises three major graves: Dowth, Newgrange and Knowth. Smaller and narrower than its neighbors, Dowth's tomb reaches 90 meters in diameter. In the state of searches, public access is prohibited.