Things to do
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Bective Abbey
A Cistercian abbey of 1147 on the Boyne, fortified into a house after the dissolution, so the cloister arcade and a tower stand together in an open field. It is unstaffed, unfenced and usually empty, and Braveheart was filmed in the cloister in 1994.
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Knowth
The largest of the three mounds, ringed by seventeen smaller satellite tombs and carrying about a third of all the megalithic art known in western Europe on its kerbstones. The chamber is not entered, but the roof of the mound is walked.
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Newgrange
A passage tomb of about 3200 BC under a mound eighty-five metres across, whose roof box admits the rising sun into the chamber for a few minutes at the winter solstice. Access is by shuttle and guided tour only, and the solstice places are drawn by lottery each autumn.
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Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre
The interpretive centre on the south bank of the river, with a full-scale replica of the Newgrange chamber for anyone who cannot manage the low passage. Every ticket to the monuments is issued here and summer slots should be booked online in advance.
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Dowth
The third mound, cratered by Victorian excavators who dug it from the top down and never repaired it, aligned on the winter solstice sunset rather than the sunrise. It is not part of the shuttle route and is looked at from the roadside field.
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Hill of Slane
The hill where Saint Patrick is said to have lit the paschal fire in defiance of the high king at Tara, crowned now by a ruined sixteenth-century friary and college. The tower is climbable and looks down the Boyne valley to the tombs.
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Hill of Tara
The inauguration place of the high kings, a low ridge carrying a neolithic passage tomb, two linked ring forts and the standing Lia Fail, with a view said to cover half the counties of Ireland. It is an open field with a small visitor centre in a former church and no fee to walk it.
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Loughcrew Cairns
A group of passage tombs on the Slieve na Calliagh ridge, older than the pyramids, whose Cairn T is aligned on the equinox sunrise and carries some of the densest megalithic carving in Europe. The climb is steep and the key to the chamber is held seasonally.
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Monasterboice
A monastic ruin north of Drogheda with two churches, a round tower struck by fire in 1098, and Muiredach's High Cross, which is the finest carved cross in Ireland and still legible after eleven hundred years. It is a small open graveyard with no fee.
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Trim Castle
The largest Norman castle in Ireland, begun by Hugh de Lacy in 1172, with a twenty-sided keep inside a curtain wall that still runs most of its circuit. The keep is only reachable on the guided tour and the grounds are free.
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Yellow Steeple
The east wall of the bell tower of Saint Mary's Augustinian abbey, forty metres of it left standing after the rest was pulled down in 1649 to keep it from Cromwell. It faces the castle across the river and is lit at night.
