PERFORATING TIME

One of the things I love about Ireland is how the thin film of that present we inhabit is so often perforated by the reality of previous millennia.

Many people believe that time travels in a linear fashion from past to present to future but of course that conceptual model doesn’t work in reality. The truth is that the past informs and affects everything we do in the present (and hence in the future). It’s physical, but sometimes intangible, and yet inescapable in all its forms.

We’ve had many contemporary examples of such temporary intrusions over the years, with the ongoing discovery of gold hoards and bog butter, the unearthing of new passage graves and henges at Brú Na Bóinne and, more interestingly, this find on the banks of the river Boyne from several years back. Needless to say, the finds have continued since then.

Despite all the crap going on in the world at the moment, we do truly live in fascinating times.