Tara: sacred or just special?

Last summer I connected with Tara in Ireland, a sacred site with monuments older than Stonehenge and the pyramids.

Previously, the only connotation I had for "Tara" was in "Gone with the Wind." Well, Scarlett's family was Irish, and the revered Irish place called Tara inspired the name of their plantation. Some say "tara" means a hill of great prospect and that you could see most of Ireland's counties atop it.

The Hill of Tara has profound history. It was the seat of prehistoric and historic Celtic kings. It's where St. Patrick went to confront pagans and their ancient religion.

Before I even left the US on university business, while still in the Detroit airport, I fell in love with the Tara brooch (8th c.) pictured in my Dublin travel guide. It became my goal to see it in Dublin's National History Museum, which I did, in the room full of ancient brooches used to fasten cloaks closed. The tara brooch was discovered near the Hill of Tara, County Meath, in 1910.

Later that week on a day trip into the countryside around Dublin, I visited Tara. I saw the ancient stone monuments and the Mound of Hostages, a tomb dating to 2500 BC. But when I saw the yew trees in the churchyard, I felt I was meeting old friends.

Yew trees are the oldest trees in the world. They're used in churchyards because they're thought to protect the dead, and they're associated with kings and power. I felt their power, more than anything in that amazing place. To be in the presence of a living thing hundreds and maybe thousands of years old! I remember my mom saying she was a tree worshipper, and I'm pretty sure I inherited that from her.








Many graves in Ireland are decorated with Celtic crosses, having a circle where the cross arms intersect. It is said that St. Patrick wanted to honor the Celts' pagan worship of the moon goddess and so incorporated the circle/moon into the symbol of the cross. I think that's pretty cool.

Don gave me this cross for Christmas.

Note: Since this post, I discovered that the trees were not yews, but beeches. I left a comment shortly after the post to make the correction, but all comments have disappeared from this and most posts this year. :(