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Sunrise over Baunfree Hill lighting the eastern chamber.
The Neolithic period saw the arrival of the first farmers to Ireland around 4000BC. They brought with them better farming systems and domesticated animals, which in time pushed out the nomadic hunters. Tools were an important introduction also, from stone axes to querns for grinding corn. Farming was mixed, forests were cleared and farmland such as the Céide fields in Co Mayo were laid out.
The people of this period also built the megalithic tombs, the most familiar of these to us is most likely Newgrange in Co Meath.
Tombs like Newgrange are often orientated on important phases of the suns yearly cycle such as the Winter Solstice. This event – December 21 each year – is celebrated as it marks the end of the short days and with the lengthening of the days, brings the promise of new growth. It is no surprise that this day was celebrated by these early farmers.