Sights in Tara
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Royal Enclosure
To the south of the church, the Royal Enclosure is a large, oval Iron Age hill fort, 315m in diameter and surrounded by a bank and ditch cut through solid rock under the soil. Inside the Royal Enclosure are several smaller sites.
The Mound of the Hostages, a bump in the northern corner of the enclosure, is the most ancient known part of Tara and the most visible of its remains. Supposedly a prison cell for hostages of the 3rd-century king Cormac MacArt, it is in fact a small Stone Age passage grave dating from around 1800 BC that was later used by Bronze Age people. The passage contains some carved stonework, but is closed to the public.
The mound produced a treasure trove…
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Rath of the Synods
The names applied to Tara's various humps and mounds were adopted from ancient texts, and mythology and religion intertwine with the historical facts. The Protestant church grounds and graveyard spill onto the remains of the Rath of the Synods, a triple-ringed fort where some of St Patrick's early synods (meetings) supposedly took place. Excavations of the enclosure suggest that it was used between AD 200 and 400 for burials, rituals and living quarters. Originally the ring fort would have contained wooden houses surrounded by timber palisades.
Excavations have uncovered Roman glass, shards of pottery and seals, showing links with the Roman Empire even though the Romans…
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Gráinne's Fort
Gráinne was the daughter of King Cormac. Betrothed to Fionn McCumhaill (Finn McCool), she eloped with Diarmuid, one of the king's warriors, on her wedding night, becoming the subject of the epic The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne. Gráinne's Fort and the northern and southern Sloping Trenches off to the northwest are burial mounds.
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Enclosure of King Laoghaire
South of the Royal Enclosure is this large but worn ring fort where the king, a contemporary of St Patrick, is supposedly buried standing upright and dressed in his armour.
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Banquet Hall
North of the churchyard is Tara's most unusual feature, a rectangular earthwork measuring 230m by 27m along a north–south axis. Tradition holds that it was built to cater for thousands of guests during feasts. Much of this information comes from the 12th-century Book of Leinster and the Yellow Book of Lecan, which even includes drawings of the hall.
Opinions vary as to the site's real purpose. Its orientation suggests that it was a sunken entrance to Tara, leading directly to the Royal Enclosure. More recent research, however, has uncovered graves within the compound, and it's possible that the banks are in fact the burial sites of some of the kings of Tara.
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