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Fields Recordings From The Sea
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FourWinds
FourWinds
10943 posts

Re: and as for the stones and mounds...
Apr 21, 2004, 07:14
When considering Carrowmore two possibilities leap out at me. On that little plateau they built over 100 tombs in the space of 500 years or so, possibly a bit longer. If we say one every five years on average then that indicates that they had a fair bit of free time and wanted to thank the gods or that they made time available because the were in deep do-do and wanted to appease the gods.

The complex a Beaghmore is built over an old field system, which was already encroached upon by peat when the circles and rows were built. This is usually taken to be a sign of panic by the locals and an attempt to appease the gods. Of course this assumes that the builders of the circles were the farmers that once had fields there.

I personally think that it's more like a re-zoning of land by a later people. If peat had formed , even just a few inches, then the fields had been abandoned for quite some time.

Ireland and its mythology is full of the people who once lived here, before the writers of each myth and it is, to me at least, probable that the Beaghmore circles were erected to honour those that had left their mark on the land before the builders of the circles arrived.

Due to the amount of peat in Ireland it is mainly a pastoral farming society today. Crops just don't grow except in the SE. This was not always the case: Prior to the climate change agriculture was prolific. So here we have 'regressed' back to a system that was supposedly superceded by wheat farming. Parts of Scotland, Wales and the north of England have similar conditions, but there they are isolated to the high ground: in Ireland even the low ground is covered in raised bogs.

I find it hard to account for things like it still being traditional in some parts of Ireland to feed anyone who comes to your door BEFORE asking their name. This is done to show what a good host you are. If the visitor turns out to be from a rival family you can kill them afterwards (or shout "Get orf my land!" at them today). Customs such as these are the result of a mindset, and are obviously not genetic. The fact that so many groups of people can have so many different ways of thinking implies to me that even if there is a common root-psyche in us we have some degree of control over it.

We are but sheep and the strengths and the weaknesses of the shepherds become the strengths and weaknesses of us all.
In reply to:
and as for the stones and mounds... (TomBo)		 Replies:
Re: and as for the stones and mounds... (Hob)
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