Archaeology handicrafts and science and technology sites to visit Ireland

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.

It is a big rock of 217 m, beaten by the winds, classified as UNESCO Heritage. You will find an abbey built in the th century. To go to the abbey, you borrow a staircase of 600 steps dug out of the rock: a monument in itself. The isolation of Skellig Michael has recently discouraged visitors, thus favouring an exceptional state of preservation. Skellig Michael also hosts many bird species. Among other things, you can observe petrels, puffin, Gannet, gulls, kittiwake…

The number of visitors arriving on the island every day is limited. It is therefore preferable to reserve during the summer months. The crossing can be done from Portmagee (1 hour 30 min) or Ballinskelligs (1 hour). Count about 25 € return. The ocean can make the crossing difficult, but it is worth it.

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…

Visits to a cave are organized, where a stalactite of 7.30 meters is found, recognized as the third longest in the world! The location is considered to be Doolin's greatest tourist attraction, and especially one of Ireland's most impressive geological sites. In 1952, two English amateur speleologists discovered this millennium cavity to limestone rock. The incredible geological formation there is related to the flow of a small underground river. An unexpected show in perspective!

From Carrowmore, we guess the tumulus of Knocknarea, whose legend wants him to be the gigantic tomb of Queen Maeve. The team of Swedish archeologists who took care of the Carrowmore site thought that this construction was going back to 3000 BC and that the tumulus could conceal a corridor passage. In any case, the air we receive from the top of these 300 meters is a high spirituality (the ascension lasts three good hours of hour from the parking lot).

A superb 25 km scenic road linking Glencolmcille to Ardara passes through Glengesh Pass (Gleann Géis in Gaelic, which means «Glen des Cygnes»). By approaching the Heritage Town of Ardara, we recommend a stop to the wonderful beach of Maghera.

Lovers of the sea will love. Not to bathe, but to smell the spray. The waves come to a halt, against layers of sandstone that form huge plateaus in the strike. In the surrounding area everything is desert, it even seems that the birds have abandoned fighting the wind…

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.