Sunlight penetrating darkness is not always gentle, it can be cruel and inevitable. It is certainly invincible, always winning the preliminary fight of pre-dawn before the flaming spear of the first rays explode over the horizon. At the famous site of New Grange in Ireland, where sunlight enters the long tunnel and illuminates the chamber on the Winter Solstice, it has been described as slicing into the darkness quickly and devastatingly – “like a sword” rather than a slow rosy glow.
