Newgrange Winter Solstice 2016
On the days around the Winter Solstice when the skies are clear, the rising sun illuminates the passage and chamber of the 5,000 year old megalithic passage tomb at Newgrange in the Boyne Valley. Conditions were good on Sunday, December 18.
There was some cloud on the horizon obscuring the rising sun at Newgrange on December 18
The rising sun soon cleared the cloud to bathe Newgrange in golden light
The white quartz on the Newgrange mound glows in the sunlight
The sunbeam enters the chamber through an opening called the roof box over the entrance door
It is the higher sunbeam from the roof box that illuminates the chamber inside Newgrange
5,000 year old solar alignment
Above the entrance to Newgrange there is an opening called a roof box. On mornings around the winter solstice a beam of light penetrates the roof box and travels up the 19 meter passage and into the chamber. As the sun rises higher, the beam widens so that the whole chamber is dramatically illuminated.
Access to the chamber on the solstice mornings is decided by a lottery that takes place at the end of September each year. All are welcome to gather outside the entrance to the Newgrange mound on each of the mornings from December 18 to December 23 inclusive, sunrise is at 8.58am.
The Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) - Ireland's Ancient East
The Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) over Newgrange in the Boyne Valley on December 20, 2015.
Newgrange Winter Solstice Archive
- 21st December 2025
- 19th December 2024
- 19th December 2023
- 20th December 2022
- 20th December 2020
- 18th December 2016
- 20th December 2015
- 19th December 2014
- 21st December 2013
- 18th December 2011
- 22nd December 2010
- 19th December 2010
- 18th December 2010
- 22nd December 2009
- 21st December 2009
- 21st December 2008
- 21st December 2007
- 22nd December 2006
- 21st December 2006
- 21st December 2005
- 20th December 2005
- 21st December 2004
- 19th December 2004
- 21st December 2003
- 22nd December 2002
- 21st December 2001