RELIGION POWER AND KNOWLEDGE IN ANCIENT NORTHWEST FERMANAGH. John B. Cunningham. adam4eves@aol.com M. 07855325693. 56 pages, A5, 68 illustrations. Price £10 P&P £6.

Our ancient places are often hidden, forgotten, or dismissed in the modern world but they still retain an importance dimly discernible through the mists of newer centuries and newer religions. They try to speak to us of ancient learning, strongly held belief, knowledge, and an educated people. We may struggle to understand but this does not absolve us from making the effort to comprehend and to empathise. Like Rome a stone circle was not built in a day. Why is it here? How long has it been planned? How long has the night sky been studied by these people or the passage of the seasons all in a human lifespan of little more than 40 years? There were universities and centers of learning in Ireland long before Christianity such as at Tomregan, Co., Cavan, and Devenish Island in Fermanagh.

Our modern assumption that we know it all and have built on the top of a pyramid of knowledge is a total fallacy that ignores the vast amounts of knowledge we have forgotten or lost. Many modern ideologies or religious beliefs have spuriously rejected anything that runs contrary to their new dogmas which themselves frequently turn out to be false gods in new guises.

This volume tries to look at four ancient sites in NW Fermanagh and go beyond the cautious verdicts of some experts and archaeologists to put flesh and bones on those who struggled and thought to make sense of the world they found themselves in – our ancestors.

CONTENTS – PAGES.

2.         Preface.

3.         Drumskinney Stone Circle – a megalithic mini-complex from the Bronze Age.

5.         The Power and Significance of 3.

7.         The Power and significance of 13.

9.         The ‘Singing’ Stones.

11.       Due North, the Pole Star and Midwinter.

12.       Newgrange, Winter Solstice Monument created 1,000 years before the Pyramids of Egypt.

14.        A sacred Landscape? Some other prehistoric remains in the Drumskinney area.

16.        The Janus Statue, Sile-na-Gig and Caldragh Cemetery on Boa Island.

18.        Our Asiatic DNA.

20.       Balbals? Perhaps the Origin of the Janus Statue.

22.        The Caldragh Sile-Na-Gig.

25.       JANUARY GOD. Seamus Heaney.

26.       Caldragh Cemetery & Caldragh Cemetery Inscriptions.

27.        IDENTITIES Francis Harvey.

28.       The Ancient Caldragh Hawthorn.

29.       Kiltierney Ancient Place of Worship.

32.        Kiltierney Abbey and Grange.

37.        The Bogle Bush.

40.       Kiltierney Monastery Graveyard.

41.       Killadeas Churchyard.

43.        The Culdees Monastic Movement.

46.        The Killadeas Holed Stone.

50.       The Cross Slab Stone.

51.       Bishops Stone, Killadeas.

51.       Irish Yew Trees. Guardians of the graveyard.

52.       Key Sites in North Fermanagh.

54.        White or Whit Island.

56.        White Island and Ley Lines.