Hill Of Tara : Hill Fort

CountyMeath
Grid RefN 920 596
Longitude6° 36' 39.13" W
Latitude53° 34' 41.52" N
ITM east480366
ITM north584435
Nearest TownDunshaughlin (8.5 Km)
OS Sheet43
UTM zone29U
UTM x449041
UTM y5761192

This site has subsites

Barrow - Hill Of Tara - BarrowCormac's House - Hill Of Tara - Hill Fort
Grainne's Enclosure - Hill Of Tara - Hill FortGraveyard Stones - Hill Of Tara - Standing Stone
House Of Synods - Hill Of Tara - Hill FortLaegh - The Hill Of Tara - Holy Well
Mound Of Hostages - Hill Of Tara - Passage TombRath Loaghlaire - Hill Of Tara - Hill Fort
Sloping Trenches - Hill Of Tara - Hill FortStone Of Destiny - Hill Of Tara - Standing Stone
The Great Hall - Hill Of Tara - CursusThe King's Seat - Hill Of Tara - Hill Fort
The Well Of The White Cow - The Hill Of Tara - Holy Well
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Visit Notes

Sunday, 27th January 2002

When the family and I visited Tara the first time I had no luck with the camera and so I decided a long time ago that another visit was definitely in order. Mind you, I love this place and don't really need an excuse.

I was fortunate in the fact that I had the whole hill to myself today; I was unfortunate in the fact that it was raining.

Friday, 12th April 2002

I had originally planned to show Tara to my friends first thing in the morning when the surreal fairy light covers the hill, but Julian suggested that we take in the sunset here and so plans changed.

We had two hours until sunset when we arrived and so were able to look around at our leisure. There were very few other people milling about and once the road noise was cut from our attention it was wonderful.

We sat on The King's Seat (County Meath) next to Stone Of Destiny (County Meath) and watched an amazing sunset. I don't think the day could have ended more perfectly for any of us.

We had the pleasure of meeting an American lady who had finally made it to Tara. The pleasure and excitement she showed at being on this magical hill was a treat in itself. I was certainly reminded of how incredibly lucky I am to live just 40 miles from Tara.

Click Thumbnail to View Full Size Image

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Sunday, 2nd June 2002

Back again! And this time I got soaked! The grass is really long right now and last night's downpour made walking off the paths great fun.

I was here primarily to take some panoramic shots of the hill and to look for some of the wells on the hill.

Saturday, 7th September 2002

Today we attended a tour of the hill and part of some talks given by the archaeologists that have done so much fantastic work at Tara over the last 8 years or so. I spent some time talking to Conor Newman about several of the thoughts that I have developed over the last few months whilst studying the Hill of Tara quite heavily. To my surprise (and delight) he seems to share some of these.

We also experienced the 'Audio-Visual Display' (that's a film to you and I) in the visitors centre. To be frank I was not impressed with about 70% of it. It is definitely aimed at attacking the tourist market and, although it has been updated to include some more recent discoveries and ideas, the photos still showed St. Patrick on the Forradh.

The talks, though, were well worth attending and although I didn't learn anything new to me it was great to meet the people whose work I have been reading of late.

Click Thumbnail to View Full Size Image

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Sunday, 8th December 2002

We had a whistle stop tour of Tara on our way to Loughcrew (County Meath). I can never resist popping in.

Saturday, 15th May 2004

I do not need an excuse to visit Tara and so when a friend of mine found out that he'd mislaid a photograph that was supposed to go into a book he's just written I jumped at the chance to come.

The hill was predictably busy, but not over-crowded. A couple of tour buses accounted for most of the visitors and here and there couples had found themselves little hide-aways. We wandered over most of the hill because I thought I'd take the opportunity to take some proper GPS reading for the various monuments.

Like this monument

Marked Sites

Old Images

Click Thumbnail to View Full Size Image

<a href='/show/image/4719/hill_of_tara.htm' class='redlink'>Permanent Link</a>_

Directions

Follow the N3 from Dublin and turn left at the Village of Tara. Take the first right (past Rath Maeve) and the Hill Of Tara is 3 km on the left.

Random Gazetteer

A Selection of Other Hill Forts

External Links

Knowth.com

A great site specialising in the megalithic passage tombs of Newgrange, Knowth, Dowth, Fourknocks, Loughcrew and Tara.
Click here to visit this site

NUI Galway, Dept of Archaeology - Tara & the M3

For those looking for good information on the <i>Heritage of Tara vs M3</i> fight this page on the NUI Galway website has loads of information that some would like to keep quiet about.

There are links to new sites that were not taken into account by the planners as well as geo-phys results for some of the sites that will be destroyed by the new road.
Click here to visit this site

About Coordinates Displayed

This is an explanation of (and a bit of a disclaimer for) the coordinates I provide.

Where a GPS figure is given this is the master for all other coordinates. According to my Garmin these are quite accurate.

Where there is no GPS figure the 6 figure grid reference is master for the others. This may not be very accurate as it could have come from the OS maps and could have been read by eye. Consequently, all other cordinates are going to have inaccuracies.

The calculation of Longitude and Latitude uses an algorithm that is not 100% accurate. The long/lat figures are used as a basis for calculating the UTM & ITM coordinates. Consequently, UTM & ITM coordinates are slightly out.

UTM is a global coordinate system - Universal Transverse Mercator - that is at the core of the GPS system.

ITM is the new coordinate system - Irish Transverse Mercator - that is more accurate and more GPS friendly than the Irish Grid Reference system. This will be used on the next generation of Irish OS maps.

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