![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jerpoint-Abbey-in-Thomastown-GettyImages-1447858052.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nThe passage tombs of the Ancient East<\/p>\n
In the Boyne Valley of County Meath, an hour north of Dublin, lies a prehistoric landscape that\u2019s one of the most archaeologically important in Europe. Older than Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt, Newgrange is Ireland\u2019s neolithic headliner \u2013 every year on the winter solstice, people gather to see a perfect shaft of sunlight beaming through the 5,000-year-old passage tomb at sunrise in precise astronomical alignment. Along with the neighbouring passage mound of Knowth, it gives an insight into the sacred rituals of the farming communities that built these structures in 3200BC, as well as their sophisticated engineering skills. While you can enter Newgrange on a guided tour, you can\u2019t go into the tombs at Knowth, but the site itself, which also has 17 satellite cairns, is nonetheless impressive. At both sites, the spirals, triangles and zigzags carved into the large stones surrounding the tombs are a fascinating gallery of megalithic art.<\/p>\n
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Comedy and history abounds in Kilkenny<\/p>\n
Wirestock\/Getty ImagesKilkenny for Culture<\/p>\n
The city of Kilkenny could claim to be Ireland\u2019s comedy capital. Its long-running festival, the Cat Laughs<\/a>, has featured blockbuster names such as Graham Norton and Bill Murray in the past, and now the sellout acts on the June Bank Holiday weekend might include Dara \u00d3 Briain and Joanne McNally. Kilkenny is also home to the world\u2019s first economics and comedy festival: Kilkenomics<\/a>, when global thinkers \u201chave a laugh despite the gloom\u201d when debating topics such as crypto, AI and crony capitalism over a weekend in November. For cultural heritage of a more mainstream variety, 12th-century Jerpoint Abbey, 13 miles south of the city, is a wonderful example of Romanesque and Gothic architecture, with many details preserved, and nearby Jerpoint Glass Studio<\/a> welcomes visitors to see the glassblowers creating their colourful wares.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The passage tombs of the Ancient East In the Boyne Valley of County Meath, an hour north of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,20593,60,43],"class_list":["post-382915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-inspiration","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}