Boann was the river-goddess of the river Boyne and a warrior princess of the mystical tribe known as the Tuatha Dé Dannan who came to Ireland in earliest times in a fleet of ships that ‘sailed the high air and the low air’ and conquered the island of Éireann.
- The first loose concept drawing for Boann.
- The second rough pencil drawing, missing, probably mislaid, and buried somewhere in the attic: the final pencil drawing.
- the final pen and ink drawing before painting. Luckily I had pg photocopies made of the line work and this is my photo of it. I need to have this one properly scanned.
- Detail of the line work. As you can see it’s pretty tight.
- Closeup of the line art.
NAME ORIGINS
Bóann was the Goddess of Brú na Bóinne, known now as Newgrange. ‘Brú’ means a sacred dwelling place and ‘na Bóinne’ refers to the Boyne River nearby.
Bóann, a water goddess, according to legend was the lover of the Great God, the Gaelic All-Father, known as the Dagda, the dweller of the Brú. He was the father and Bóann was the mother of Aengus Óg.
The name is thought to mean ‘cow white goddess’ -from the Indo-European ‘Bo-Vinda’. She also gave her name to the river Bóinn, or Boyne, in Co. Meath, which runs beside the Brú at Newgrange.
In Ptolemy’s map of Ireland, the Boyne is mentioned as ‘Buvinda’, a reference to the white cow and fertility.
A ninth-century tale tells of the mischievous Dagda luring Bóann into his Brú and seducing her with his tall tales and wealth, thus parenting the poet Aengus Óg, their son.
Brú naBóinne, it is said, was built by the Dagda himself and given possession by him to his son Aengus.
W.B.Yeats was inspired by the tale to pen his beautiful lyric, ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus.’ referring to the Solstice when he wrote of ‘the golden apples of the Sun, the silver apples of the Moon’.
THE SOLAR DISC
The solar disk behind the figure is a device to acknowledge the beliefs of the ancients in the power of the Sun God to renew and replenish the earth.
THE IRISH WOLFHOUND
The Irish Wolfhound was bred to hunt boar, deer, and wolves. Wolfhounds were the companions of warriors, hunters, and royalty and were housed alongside them. The most famous of all the wolfhounds were Bran and Sceolán, the hounds of Fionn Mac Cumhail, and Luath, the hound of Chulainn.
Luath was slain by the youthful Setanta and as a replacement Setanta offered himself; henceforth he was known as Cú Chulainn, the Hound of Chulainn.
With the invasions of Ireland by the English, they were used by the Irish for warfare and trained to catch armoured knights on horseback, separate them from their horses -and often snap their necks with their huge jaws.
BRÚ NA BÓINNE. NEWGRANGE
Newgrange Megalithic Passage Tomb was constructed about 5,200 years ago and is, according to Arthur C. Clarke (author ‘2001’), ‘the oldest building in the world’.
The massive mound covers an area of over one acre and is surrounded by 97 kerbstones, some decorated with richly carved megalithic artwork. The inner chamber leads to a large cruciform chamber with a corbelled roof raised dramatically in curved steps to a massive capstone, all engineered without the use of any kind of mortar or binding material.
All told it is calculated that construction of this monumental Passage Grave would have taken a workforce of over 300 at least 20 years to complete.
Above the entrance to the passage grave, there is an opening known as a roof box; its purpose is to allow sunlight to penetrate the passage and chamber at sunrise of the Winter Solstice.
THE WINTER SOLSTICE
Every winter at solstice time (December 18-23) the passage and main chamber are illuminated by the Winter Solstice sunrise; a dramatic and symbolic shaft of sunlight penetrates the womb of the passage chamber through the roof box over the entrance. This extraordinary and unique event lasts around 15-17 minutes at dawn on the Winter Solstice and for a few mornings before and after the 18-23 December.
A narrow beam of light slowly illuminates the passage floor and gradually reaches the chamber. As the sun rises higher, the beam intensifies, riding higher and widening within the chamber so that the entire chamber becomes dramatically illuminated. After about 17 minutes the sunbeam leaves the chamber and retreats back down the passage.
I have been lucky enough to experience this almost mystical experience and it stays with you. Once you realise this area was sacred and limited to the druid and royalty, off-limits to outsiders, even Roman soldiers and pilgrims who left their coinage outside as offerings, then you get the idea of how important and sacred this ancient solar observatory really was and how accurately it told of the passing seasons, a time to sow and a time to reap, two of the most vital times in prehistory. Get that wrong and the tribe starves.
SOLSTICE
The term Solstice literally means ‘the sun stands still’. For a few days, the sun appears to stand still in the sky and maintain its elevation at noon. This was one of the great Ancient Irish occasions of worship when the Sun God penetrated the womb of the Earth and fertilised the land.
THE MODEL AND THE WORK.
The model and inspiration for the goddess Boann was a beautiful and iconic Irish fashion model, Sharon Bacon, who was also a muse to designer Richard Lewis.
Sharon was an acquaintance of mine and of course, I used a Richard Lewis dress as my inspiration here too as both worked beautifully together.
I modified that dress and added length and some appropriate Celtic designs to give it more life.
The real challenge was to do justice to both the model and the designer. The outcome was one of my favourite works, one of a few I would not change even today.
Finally: Thanks to my brilliant geneticist cousin, Aoife McLysaght of Trinity College, I got to speak to Dr. Lara Cassidy, who, like Aoife, is one of the greatest experts in the field and her discoveries about the ancient Irish will make your hair stand up.
Dr. Cassidy has, as far as I know, is the only person allowed access to, and been allowed, to conduct genetic testing on the bones found at Newgrange a century ago and the results are no surprise to me but still quite staggering to have my own conclusions years ago confirmed by ancient DNA, thousands of years old.
But that’s another blog and I will try to make a sensible stab at it even though it is way above my pay grade.
But I do have an expert to guide me ☺
-JIM FITZPATRICK.2023