So many say that coming to Ireland is like coming home. It’s palpable. For this is the land of our heritage. And it sings a warm welcome. Here we have a sense of who we are as a people. For we are the branches of a tree with ancient roots. In the people, in the mythologies and stories, in the megalithic landscapes, there is a remembering and re-membering of ancestral knowing. There is a union in it.

Wandering among the megaliths at Carrowmore, more numerous than anywhere in Ireland, I stand among the circles and dolmens and soften my gaze to visualize the gatherings that happened here in this landscape beneath the majesty of Mave’s Cairn atop Knocknarea. Although some say they can see the ancestors of this place and some of us can absolutely sense them, it’s hard to imagine. This place filled with people. This place of reunion.

Archeological evidence suggests the people didn’t live here and what they did here among the stones remains a mystery. Yet clearly this was a sacred place. Clearly a place and time for our ancestral peoples to remember who they were as a people. Clearly a time of unity and union…and re-union.

In this time when division and discord is our national story. In this time when those in positions of power focus on our differences to alienate us from each other. I remember that our heritage is one of union. I remember there is always present the invitation for re-union.

Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com