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Massacre of 160 people in Mali 'underlines need for international presence', Dept Defence says

There are currently 20 Irish Defence Forces personnel deployed to the EU Training Mission (EUTM) in Mali.

A MASSACRE OF 160 people in a village in central Mali “underlines the need for an international presence”, the Department of Defence has said following calls to bring home members of the Defence Forces from the region. 

The deadly raid took place on 23 March in the village of Ogassogou, home to the Fulani herding community, near the town of Mopti in central Mali.

A militia from the Dogon ethnic group – a hunting and farming community with a long history of tension with the Fulani over access to land – is suspected to have carried out the raid.

The victims, many of them woman and children, were shot or hacked to death with machetes, a security source told AFP.

The United Nations has launched an investigation into the attack. 

Irish Defence Forces

There are currently 20 Irish Defence Forces personnel deployed to the EU Training Mission (EUTM) in Mali. Ireland has participated in the mission since it was launched in 2013. 

The mission includes 9 Irish personnel who occupy staff appointments in the mission headquarters in Bamako and 11 personnel who are based in the Koulikoro training centre. 

Koulikoro is located around 650 kilometres from where the incident took place. 

Last week, Luke Ming Flanagan MEP called on the government to bring home the Irish personnel following the massacre. 

Speaking in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Flanagan raised concerns over the risk to Ireland’s reputation of further involvement in the Malian conflict.

“EUTM in Mali was originally meant to be a fifteen-month operation. It is six years later and we have been drawn further and further into this terrible conflict,” Flanagan said.

It’s time to bring the 20 members of the Irish Defences Forces who have been training the Malian Army back home.

Flanagan added that the “disturbing killings” must be condemned in the “strongest possible terms”.

“Our involvement as a nation in the Malian conflict needs to be carefully looked at in light of this terrible event,” he said. 

In a statement to TheJournal.ie, the Department of Defence said Minister of State Paul Kehoe is “very concerned at the horrific reports” of the massacre. 

The Department said the “massacre and senseless loss of innocent lives underlines the need for an international presence and highlights the important function of the UN mandated EU Training mission”.

“Continued participation in this mission supports Ireland’s ongoing obligations to international peace and security and the commitment to maintaining the Defence Forces capabilities in international operations”, the Department said. 

The Department of Defence and the Defence Forces continually monitor the security situation in all overseas missions and take all necessary steps to ensure the safety of Irish Defence Force personnel. 

This has been the deadliest attack in Mali since the 2013 French-led military intervention that drove back jihadist groups who had taken control of the north of the country. 

Jihadist raids remain a persistent threat, and in the centre of the country, an ethnic mosaic, the attacks have had a bloody impact on groups with a history of rivalry.

The Fulani have been accused of supporting a jihadist preacher, Amadou Koufa, who rose to prominence in central Mali four years ago.

So-called self-defence groups have emerged in the Dogon community in the declared role of providing protection against the insurgents. 

But these militias have also used their status to attack the Fulani.

With reporting by © AFP 2019

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    Mute jonathon carroll
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    Dec 18th 2017, 10:05 AM

    I really think Newgrange is one of the most underrated ancient constructs. How did they build it so that the sun would shine in and light up the on the shortest day of the year? It simply amazes me.

    When I think about the world wide coverage Stonehenge gets in comparison where there is even pictures online of wooden cranes lifting the bridge stone on to the freestanding stone at the turn of the last century.

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    Mute Tom Phelan
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    Dec 18th 2017, 10:39 AM

    @jonathon carroll: absolutely. Newgrange is a very special place, the whole boyne Valley is indeed special. This whole island played a major part in ancient world history, some think Ireland was where the mythical city of Atlantic was. https://youtu.be/515ecDeMpqY

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 18th 2017, 12:35 PM

    @jonathon carroll: The structure itself couldn’t be built along the coast as the appearance of the Sun on the horizon is far too weak to create the spectacle so they built it on a hill with just the right distance to another hill so when the Sun appearance it is a megawatt spectacle.

    The ancients couldn’t show up after every 365 days and expect the alignment to be replicated year after year otherwise the spectacle would be lost within 20 years. They found a way to keep the date fixed to the Solstice so that when observers show up on Wednesday, it will be the exact same day as observers did over 5200 years ago. Of course the older way of reckoning the beginning of the year was shoved aside by the time of the Greeks who used a different notion.

    The Irish sea once had the most diverse variety of fish and I can only imagine the sheer volume of Salmon coming up the Boyne. These ancient people were extremely good at bringing large rocks from the coast up the river along with architects who built amazing structures like the corbelled roof and just the right inclination from roofbox to central chamber to make the light spectacle so much points of admiration.

    I was inside the chamber last year by pure chance and it is truly an experience.

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    Mute Thomas Blackcat
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    Dec 18th 2017, 1:17 PM

    @jonathon carroll: Wooden cranes lifting stone at Stonehenge – a couple of hundred years ago? Please where are these pictures!??

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    Mute jonathon carroll
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    Dec 18th 2017, 3:05 PM

    @Thomas Blackcat: put “biggest lies told in history” in to the YouTube search box. Stonehenge is no 2.

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    Mute Thomas Blackcat
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    Dec 18th 2017, 3:22 PM

    @jonathon carroll: No pictures then! Believed to be c3,000 years old – and examined, investigated and analysis by thousands of worldwide experts gor hundreds of years – and you decide it’s a hoax! And ours isn’t! No one knows who built Stonehenge – or when, why or how. Fact, or do you?!

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    Mute jonathon carroll
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    Dec 18th 2017, 4:22 PM

    @Thomas Blackcat: Thomas you need to relax a small bit. I never said it was a hoax. There is no doubt how old the structure is. The part that usually amazes people is how did they get the bridge stone in place and how did it survive for thousands of years in tact. If you look at the YouTube video you will see the pictures of extensive restoration with cranes. It looks so amazing because men essentially rebuilt it.

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    Mute Thomas Blackcat
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    Dec 18th 2017, 4:47 PM

    @jonathon carroll: Thousands of historians are wrong then because you saw something on YouTube! Sober up m8 – or, al least, show the film¡ And the amazing things are – no one knows how, why, by whom, Stonehenge was built. Or where the stone came from – as it’s not local. Or how it was transported….Newgrange and the Phyramids are known burial sites. Any ideas or videos o/….

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    Mute Terry McClatchey
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    Dec 18th 2017, 11:20 AM

    Amazing but not incredible. The most plausible explanation is that it was set out with wooden or temporary stone structures and a bit of trial and error used to align with the solstice sun before the main building was constructed.

    Just as today, data control was the issue. Those who could predict with accuracy when the days would start to get longer were in an incredibly powerful position. It gave them the capacity to challenge the fake news merchants who predicted never-ending winter or the end of the world. Why not hand over or eat your seeds if spring is not to come?

    Let’s hope for a clear day for streaming and good luck to those who get the chance to be in the chamber.

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    Mute Tweed Cap
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    Dec 18th 2017, 10:15 AM

    Newgrange was completely reconstructed since the 1960s. Google the old B&W photos of it before and you can clearly see that the structure as it stands today is largely the end result of somebody else’s opinion. Even the roof box was elevated during the reconstruction so this man may have a point. It’s nicer to think that he is wrong though.

    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/newgrange-renowned-for-all-the-wrong-reasons-1.2913479?mode=amp

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 18th 2017, 12:46 PM

    @Tweed Cap: You had to find the only idiot and attention seeker in Ireland but what you won’t do is stay around and go through the reasoning employed by the builders such as why a roofbox only works for the Solstice and not the Equinox, why the recent perspective of axial precession doesn’t work and so many other things.

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    Mute Tweed Cap
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    Dec 18th 2017, 12:54 PM

    @Con O’Driscoll:
    It’s wise to consider that all Irish Pre-Christian archaeology is at its most basic level, a documented collection of other people’s best educated opinions.
    The reconstruction for the quartz walls passage tomb between 1967 – 74 are Prof O’Kelly’s own personal interpretation.
    One thing you can say as a “fact” is that Newgrange is not a 100% accurate reconstruction. That of itself is an impossibility. However Prof O’Kelly’s interpretation is the one we see today and the one that entered the history books. Despite other archaeologists apparently not supporting fully these findings at the time and not wanting to be so rude as undermine this esteemed professor.
    An elaborate bronze/Iron Age barrow mound as apposed to a 10,000 year old Neolithic computer? Who cares.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 18th 2017, 12:56 PM

    @Con O’Driscoll: “So what if it’s a little off-center? The world has wobbled on its axis somewhat also from where it would have been when the original construction was carried out …”

    Not true. When Copernicus first proposed the reasons why the Earth orbited the Sun, he suggest correctly that the North and South Poles turned through small circles parallel to the orbital plane -

    “The third is the motion in declination. For, the axis of the daily rotation is not parallel to the Grand Orb’s axis, but is inclined [to it at an angle that intercepts] a portion of a circumference, in our time about 23 1/2°. Therefore, while the earth’s center always remains in the plane of the ecliptic, that is, in the circumference of a circle of the Grand Orb, the earth’s poles rotate, both of them describing small circles about centers [lying on a line that moves] parallel to the Grand Orb’s axis. ” Copernicus C 1514

    In order to satisfy his contemporaries and the Greek geocentric form of annual reckoning he dropped the correct notion by the time he wrote De Revolutionibus and employed axial precession to explain the Precession of the Equinoxes. It is wrong for the same reason that the Newgrange Solstice alignment still holds to the exact date today as it did 5,200 years ago. The Precession of thew Equinoxes can be explained by the older annual method of geocentric reckoning but whereas the builders of Newgrange were exact and careful, people today are not.

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    Mute Tweed Cap
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    Dec 18th 2017, 1:00 PM

    @Gerald Kelleher:
    It’s not a question of function for me.
    That’s a marvel. It’s a question of age. Michael Higgins is perfectly entitled to question another mans opinion as you seemingly are to slag me off.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 18th 2017, 1:18 PM

    @Tweed Cap: The whole point of Newgrange is style, not only a function of astronomical and architectural but that amazing social cohesion that got the monument built and it still stands as a testimony for so many things.

    I looked at the other guy’s comments and he his throwing the kitchen sink at my comments but the fact is that the Newgrange spectacle happens on the Solstice in a few days just as it did on the same day 5 200 years ago. It is therefore a working astronomical monument that doesn’t beg the attention of the lazy who don’t have the talent to discuss the spectacle in contemporary terms.

    I have known for many years how to keep dates fixed to the Solstices and Equinoxes and why none of you ever learned the ancient reckoning which predates the Greek perspectives which would make it impossible to build the monument.

    Stick with the attention seeker if you want, when Newgrange was discovered they looked everywhere to find a society that built it, everyone from the Vikings to our British neighbours as they couldn’t imagine the native Irish who lived on this island had the wits to build it.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 18th 2017, 1:30 PM

    @Con O’Driscoll: You are just an empirical drone, an academic version of a brexiteer who makes things up as they go along and none of what you wrote is true but that becomes a distraction. The actual way the ancients thought is enjoyable for anyone will to make the slight effort and fairly easy when the whole thing is put in contemporary terms using the motions of the Earth.

    People are familiar with ‘star signs’ which is the Greek reckoning of the motion of the Sun through the constellations so that the month of their birthday corresponds to the position of the Sun in those constellations. There is an older reckoning that first surfaced in written form by the Egyptians -

    “On account of the precession of the rising of Sirius by one day in the course of 4 years therefore it shall be, that the year of 360 days and the 5 days added to their end, so one day shall be from this day after every 4 years added to the 5 epagomenae before the New Year” Canopus Decree, 236 BC

    Like Newgrange, this insight is amazing and a testament to the care of the ancient astronomers as it relies on the first annual appearance of a star from behind the glare of the Sun . I am not going to check myself between the geocentric and moving Earth differences but as the Earth moves around the Sun, the stars lying close to the planet of orbital motion get lost behind the glare of the Sun for a few months before showing up as a morning appearance hence Sirius provided the reference for the Egyptians -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeQwYrfmvoQ

    Learn how these things are done and the Newgrange spectacle becomes more and more enjoyable.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 18th 2017, 2:30 PM

    @Con O’Driscoll: I took an image on the coast where the original stones for Newgrange were quarried and it is the first time in history this picture was taken on the Equinox -

    https://imgur.com/8wx48U4

    I can no longer find the research of Adrian Phillips and Mary Corcoran online which does extensive research in the quarry area with plenty of images and illustrations which is a shame since both are dead. The point is that once you see why the builders of Newgrange made the choices they did, it opens a whole new perspective whereas too many contemporaries try to retrofit flawed perspectives into their achievements.

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    Mute Martin Flood
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    Dec 18th 2017, 10:03 AM

    Won’t the people be in the way? There’s not a lot of room in there.

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    Mute ▁ ▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ ‏
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    Dec 18th 2017, 11:47 AM

    Great idea, fair play to them!

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    Mute Shakka1244
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    Dec 18th 2017, 11:57 AM

    @▁ ▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ ‏: I just like your username

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    Mute eastsmer
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    Dec 18th 2017, 3:10 PM

    Yes, it’s a calendar, like other calendars – there is one just inside the Kerry border.
    As you drive from Glengarriff on the so called N71 you pass through rock hewn tunnels (The Caha Pass) then you are in Kerry.
    There is a small Café/Museum (Molly Gallivan Centre) along that road. Up the back of that Museum there is a small stone alignment.
    The sun and the 2 stones are in perfect alignment when the solstice arrives.
    The area is in a remote valley so it would have been helpful for the locals to have a calendar.

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    Mute Molly1952
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    Dec 18th 2017, 5:42 PM

    @eastsmer: There are numerous others around the country and elsewhere in Europe – all equally accurate at illuminating the solstice. Newgrange might be the best developed site for visitors and it gets the most publicity but the same expertise went into constructing many more. There’s one near me in South Kilkenny – Knockroe passage tomb, – it gets very few visitors but it’s a lovely mystical ancient place.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 18th 2017, 6:25 PM

    @Molly1952: Not even close -

    http://www.megalithicireland.com/Knockroe%20Passage%20Tomb.html

    Half the other comments try to downplay Newgrange as an achievement when only the Great Pyramid really matches it for relevance . Plenty of lads in the Journal concern themselves with gender or hormonal issues and don’t think like men anymore for there are many engineering and astronomical achievements involved in those monuments.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 18th 2017, 8:18 PM

    @Con O’Driscoll: You are bluffing and that is fine but there are always people with common sense who may enjoy what works and what doesn’t.

    Axial precession was a fudge by Copernicus to satisfy his contemporaries who used a reckoning inherited from Ptolemy. Whereas he originally and correctly proposed that the North and South poles turned in an annual circle to the orbital plane and the Sun , he transferred this to a 25, 900 year cycle corresponding to the Precession of the Equinoxes.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession#/media/File:Earth_precession.svg

    As Newgrange is 5200 years old it would be roughly 20% through that cycle and close to the planet’s circle of illumination from the date of the Newgrange monument but the fact is the alignment happens on the same date presently as it did 5200 years ago hence the North and South poles haven’t budged from their positions to the Sun and the circle of illumination which it generates.

    If axial precession was right (and it isn’t) the relationship of the North and South poles to the circle of illumination would look roughly like this today from the era of the Newgrange builders -

    http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/22/earth_americas250.jpg

    Don’t try to bluff again, it does our astronomical heritage no favours.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 18th 2017, 9:07 PM

    @Con O’Driscoll: I will remind you why the Newgrange alignment happens on the same day as it did all those thousands of years ago and how that alters our perspective on the cause of the seasons, why axial precession is a flawed notion and many other topics.

    The North and South poles turn in an annual small circle and parallel to the orbital plane as Copernicus originally suggested and NASA imaging affirms it -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFrP6QfbC2g

    Keep your eye on the Antarctic Continent and the South pole is roughly at the centre of that landmass. It turns in a circle across the illuminated face of the Earth from September to March and this is replaced by the North pole from March to September.

    Don’t mistake engineering achievements of NASA with their poor interpretations of the Solstices and Equinoxes unless you are entranced by a hideous pivoting circle of illumination off the Equator -

    https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170319.html

    In 1699 when Campbell re-discovered the monument he would not have seen the alignment on December 21st or any nearby day by his reckoning. The reason for this is because the Brits wouldn’t apply the correction which creates the orbital drift until 1752 but it is their clockwork solar system and the bluffing behind it that obscures how the ancients worked and in contemporary terms the dynamics of the planet.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 19th 2017, 5:23 AM

    @Con O’Driscoll: How you manage to conclude that I am working with something other than a moving Earth and a stationary Sun is pretty dismaying but at least you are hanging in there.

    The Precession of the Equinoxes is not a theory, it is a really old observation that cannot be explained within the Ptolemaic framework which Copernicus was forced to use however it can be explained by the older framework that allows us to keep days and dates pretty close to the Solstice and Equinox points. If you want to know why anyone presently showing up on the Solstice at Newgrange in a few days sees the same spectacle on the same day as the ancients did many thousands of years ago then a lot of junk has to be removed.

    There is another way of doing this. The Solstice is defined as the greatest circumference of area where the Sun is either constantly in view or out of sight with the North and South poles at the centre. On the September Equinox, the Sun came into view for the first time in 6 months at the South pole and it will remain in view until the March Equinox where it will then be out of sight for another 6 months -

    https://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/spwebcam.cfm

    The Solstice represents Polar noon (presently South pole) or Polar midnight at the North pole where those locations are midway to the planet’s circle of illumination -

    https://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/

    When the ancient Newgrange builders fixed the Solstice or midwinter, the North and South poles were exactly in the same position either side of the circle of illumination as they are today. If you want top know what exactly causes the Precession of the Equinoxes and why axial precession is not the answer then that is a bit of a journey through timekeeping.

    Stop the nonsense of trying to pin geocentricity on me because there is a worse framework than that known as Right Ascension/Declination developed in the late 17th century and otherwise known as the clockwork solar system.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 19th 2017, 1:31 PM

    @Con O’Driscoll: Stay away from any responses I make in future.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 19th 2017, 6:56 PM

    @Con O’Driscoll: A west-Brit bluffer doesn’t last long but I assure you that in order for the alignment ro happen on the Solstice on Thursday and the same day back in antiquity, a lot of slogan chanting junk of the Brit empiricists have to be removed.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 19th 2017, 8:10 PM

    @Con O’Driscoll: “FFS ”The sun and the world haven’t changed one iota relative to each other in 5200 years.”

    The North and South poles remain in the same position relative to the circle of illumination on the Solstice in a few days as they did all those thousands of years ago -

    https://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/

    With axial precession the North/South poles are supposed to turn by 1 degree every 72 years or roughly 72 degrees since the time of the monument was built but it doesn’t happen otherwise the alignment is lost.

    Your language I have seen hundreds if not thousands of times , pure bluffing like a brexiteer unable to see what is in front of them but not much can be said otherwise.

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    Mute Patrick J. O'Rourke
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    Dec 18th 2017, 9:57 AM

    In 360?

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    Mute Alois Irlmaier
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    Dec 18th 2017, 11:22 PM

    The start of winter.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 18th 2017, 9:51 PM

    The contemporary Irish have the same relationship with Newgrange as the modern Egyptians have with the Great Pyramid and that is dismal. That monument on a hill in the Irish Countryside is now the greatest astronomical tool in existence as its alignment puts our understanding of the planet and its motion into perspective.

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    Mute Eric De Red
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    Dec 18th 2017, 9:57 PM

    This is a disgrace. Only our noble political classes should have the privilege.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 18th 2017, 2:03 PM

    This really sucks sometimes.

    https://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/

    The South and North poles are in the exact same positions to the planet’s circle of illumination today as they were 5200 years ago hence the Newgrange spectacle hasn’t budged from that date.

    The only way the spectacle would be lost to the ancient monument builders is due to the fact that the proportion of days/ rotations to annual cycles is not exactly 365 1/4 rotations to one circuit so while they could continue with the alignment for centuries, the slow drift of orbital positioning every cycle would eventually create a misalignment. The Gregorian correction brought back dates in line with the Solstices and Equinoxes so that minor drift will always be corrected in future.

    I well understand why people over 5000 years ago could come together and build these monuments as a community while today nobody is interested, not even the ins and outs of the challenges involved. It comes down to a type of indoctrination that astronomy is ‘hard’ and the preserve of theorists but once they overcome this bluffing people can come to enjoy genuine astronomical achievements and in historical context -

    http://www.loveoflifequotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Vincent-Van-Gogh-quote-on-your-inner-voice.jpg

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    Mute Denis McClean
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    Dec 18th 2017, 7:00 PM

    @Gerald Kelleher: Stating that the geographic North and South poles are exactly where they were 5K years doesn’t make ir fact without some kind of proof. We know the magnetic poles travel quite a lot and sometimes even reverse. Here’s some indication of how unlikely it is that the Poles haven’t moved, even a smidgen over such a long time.

    https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6332

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 18th 2017, 7:44 PM

    @Denis McClean: The Newgrange alignment only works for a few days before and after the Solstice because the Southern declination of the Sun reduces slowly to zero on Dec 21st and only slowly moves back to its Northern declination after that. This is common sense and the ancient builders would have known it even if you don’t -

    https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/ireland/dublin

    This is why a roofbox doesn’t work on the Equinox because the Southern/Northern declination is too rapid on the March and September Equinoxes. It is why places with an Equinox alignment like Knowth and Loughcrew have passageway alignments and no roof box.

    Even the slightest shift in the Earth’s North and South poles relative to the circle of illumination would alter the time of the alignment but it happens year after year without fail for thousand of years and most of them hidden from humanity. NASA is populated by theorists presently and they have ideas on the solstices and equinoxes that are a dishonour to the human race -

    https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170319.html

    I know the guys at JPL as I have been there by invitation and trust me on this one, they have ideas like the one above that are an assault on the eyes and ears. Newgrange as a working astronomical clock and monument clears up a lot of junk surrounding the motions of the Earth, what is possible and what is not.

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    Mute Denis McClean
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    Dec 19th 2017, 12:33 AM

    @Gerald Kelleher: You talk in riddles as in ‘the alignment works only for a few days’ (Of Course it does) and then you supply a superfluous reason for that where none is needed in an effort to apparently make yourself an oracle to the clueless. The key to understanding Newgrange is not limiting it to what it appears to be to simpletons .

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Dec 19th 2017, 5:27 AM

    @Denis McClean: The alignment is lost due to the fact that the Sun which was travelling South in smaller arcs before the Solstice, starts to travel North in wider arcs after the 21st Dec ,at least this is how the original builders would have seen it.

    “You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.” ― Galileo Galilei

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