Page 80 - The Drivers Guide 2019

The Driver's Guide
Dunmore caves
JN 8 (N10) TOWARDS KILKENNY
Descending the steep steps down the grassy bank into Dunmore Cave, leaving the daylight behind, you feel the temperature drop.
According to the 9th-century Irish Triads, this was one of the three darkest places in Ireland, and today it is like stepping into another world as natural wonders, Viking history and myths leap from the shadows.
The scene has been set for you up above in the visitor centre, with video, displays and archaeological finds. But now, immersed in these atmospherically illuminated chambers formed over millions of years, your eyes are wide open to the impressive
beauty of nature’s calcite sculptures, stalagmites and stalactites.
Alongside the story of such curious rock formations, your guide reveals the dark tale recorded by the historic Annals of the Four Masters: how, in 928 AD, Vikings massacred a thousand local people who had sought refuge at the cave.
It is a chilling episode backed up by modern archaeological discoveries of skeletons, mainly of women and children. But treasures have been found here too: coins that may have belonged to those very Vikings who wreaked havoc, and also a hoard – only discovered in 1999, glinting in a guide’s torchlight – that suggests the cave
became a hiding-place for Viking valuables including silver ingots and buttons. Who stashed them and why did they not return for them?
Climbing the steps into the daylight, it is tempting to imagine faeries appearing once you have left, to dance on the faerie floor they keep swept clean in the cave. Or so legend has it.
Relaxing in the tea room on a summer’s day, re-warming your hands around a drink and looking out on lovely countryside, you sense that even in the darkest places there is magic and light.
78 IRELAND’S ANCIENT EAST