The worldwide celebration of Ireland’s patron saint, St Patrick, has almost always been held on the 17th of March. This year, due to Easter arriving unusually early, the Catholic Church decided to move St Patrick’s day so that it didn’t take place during “holy week”.

This year’s celebrations were moved to the 15th of March, meaning that in time-honoured Google Sightseeing tradition (even when taking into account our unique time-zone arrangements), we’ve totally missed it¹.

Regardless, here is the shamrock-shaped maze near Dublin airport which we had lined up for today.

However for once we’re not alone - although many cities did spend Saturday celebrating with parades, green river dye and large quantities of Guinness - New York and Dublin steadfastly refused to budge, and their celebrations will also take place today!

Luckily March the 17th doesn’t again fall in holy week until 2160, so none of us will have to worry about it ever again.

Thanks to Fergal ohagan.

Brú na Bóinne (Palace of the Boyne) is a World Heritage Site situated in a bend of the River Boyne, County Meath, Ireland. The site contains around 40 passage graves as well as other standing stones, henges and later features. Brú na Bóinne is the location of some of the world’s most historically important Neolithic passage graves, Newgrange, Dowth and Knowth.

Newgrange

The Newgrange passage grave was built between 3300 and 2900 BC, making it more than 500 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Hidden for over 4,000 years, Newgrange was only re-discovered accidentally in 1699, but it was hugely restored between 1962 and 1975 and today consists of a huge mound retained within a circle of 97 intricately carved kerbstones, topped by a high wall of white quartz and granite.

Newgrange was built in such a way that at dawn on the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, a narrow beam of sunlight for a very short time illuminates the floor of the chamber at the end of the long passageway.

The Newgrange mound is 76m across and 12m high, and within the mound an 18m-long passage leads to a cross-shaped chamber with an arched roof. The ceiling of the chamber rises to a height of nearly 6m, and incredibly, has remained essentially intact and waterproof for over 5,000 years.

Dowth

The oldest of the three principal tombs, Dowth has been less developed as a tourist attraction than its neighbours (it was partly excavated in 1847 though it had been pillaged long before that). Quartz was found around the mound, indicating that the entrance to this tomb was surrounded by glittering white, just like Newgrange.

Dowth has two passages leading to two separate chambers, one cross-shaped, and one circular. The circular chamber is, again like Newgrange, touched by the light of the low sun around the time of the winter solstice. A convex central stone reflects the sunlight into a dark recess, lighting up the decorated stones there.

Knowth

The largest of all the passage graves at Brú na Bóinne, Knowth contains more than a third of the total number of examples of megalithic art in all Western Europe.

Made up of one large mound and 18 smaller satellite tombs, the large mound contains two independent passages running east to west, which both lead to a central burial chamber. This east-west orientation suggests that at one time there may have been an astronomical alignment with the spring and summer equinoxes, but this no longer occurs today.

Full scale excavations began on Knowth in 1962, and in contrast to the restoration efforts at Newgrange, it was decided that the fallen quartz surrounding the mound would not have been part of a front wall, but rather laid out to form a white “apron” in front of the entrance.

Other

The 780 hectares of Brú na Bóinne are absolutely loaded with other Neolithic structures - I easily found Dowth Henge, and many others - and yet the reason that so many structures were built in this specific location remains completely unknown.

More about Brú na Bóinne, Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth at Wikipedia, or visit the much more in-depth Knowth.com for some excellent inforation and some great aerial photos.

This is the Staigue Stone Fort, a beautiful round Iron Age fort located in County Kerry, Ireland. Although exact dating is difficult, this fine example of an Irish ring fort could be up to 2,000 years old.

The walls are up to 5.5 metres high and 4 metres thick, and impressively it was built without the use of any mortar, using undressed stones. Even better though, if you visit in person you’re actually allowed to climb the steps and parade around on the ramparts!

There might be as many as 60,000 ring forts in Ireland¹, many of which were only discovered thanks to the advent of aerial photography.

So it shouldn’t be too hard to find yourself an undiscovered one then, huh?

Read more at Wikipedia. Thanks to Paul Woodard.

The White House is, as we all know, the official residence of the President of the United States. But did you also know that the White House is the official residence of an Iranian immigrant?

Of course, I’m not talking about the original White House, in today’s world a man born in Iran would probably get shot for going near the White House, let alone pitching a tent. I’m instead talking about Fred Milani’s home in Atlanta.

Mr Milani, an Iran-born American citizen, built his mini White House in 2001. It boats 36 rooms and in terms of area is about 30% that of the original White House, although the layout is completely different.

Only six of the 36 rooms are bedrooms while the other rooms in the house include the “Monkey Room”, decorated with monkeys and leopard print, the “Queen Room”, with lots of pink pillows, and the “Oval office”. Oval here is used loosely as the room isn’t oval-shaped, but it does feature a replica of Abraham Lincoln’s old desk.

Other replica White House homes around the US include this one in Fairfax County, Virginia.

A smaller replica in San Antonio, Texas.

And lastly in Dallas, Texas there’s a “Red House” - A White House replica purportedly made out of red bricks.

You might say these replicas are all a bit tacky, but even the President’s White House is a rip-off. The original designs were based on Leinister House in Dublin, Ireland.

Thanks IBreakCellPhones, craigclarke and Bird’s Eye Tourist

Well I see the profile of an man looking out to sea, off the west coast of Ireland - but I suppose you might see something completely different…

Thanks to Peter R

I wonder if these drivers know that the road they’re driving along outside Cork, Ireland isn’t actually finished yet?

Thanks to David Patrick.

This feels a little like ambulance chasing, so in no particular order, here are 9 (possible) traffic accidents.

1. Highway A13 just north of Rotterdam (there’s a couple of vehicles on the hard shoulder, and traffic is backed up for a long way):

2. Belfast Spillage (first pointed out in a different thread, there seems to be some sort of spillage and water vehicles cleaning it up):

3. Traffic backed up in Moscow (definitely something holding up traffic, but it’s unclear that this is an accident):

4. Blue vs. red car in the UK (my vote is for parked cars in this case actually):

5. Central reservation crossed in Australia (there seems to be a lorry in between the carriages and a couple of emergency vehicles to one side):

6. Road rage in Las Vegas (impossible to say how these cars came to rest like this, but there’s definitely people having words in the street!):

7. Dallas Motorway accident (there’s a car on the hard shoulder, traffic creeping past, a truck on the hard shoulder facing the wrong direction, and a couple of unidentified black marks on the road):

8. Burning car, Germany (Car is still on fire and is surrounded by firemen, there’s water staining the motorway, a fire engine and hundreds of backed up vehicles to the north):

9. Jackknifed lorry, Dallas (Dallas again? Lorry appears to have jackknifed across the highway, but it seems traffic is getting past):

We sincerely hope that nobody was seriously injured in any of these incidents.

Thanks to Dirk Thiel, WRA, Wilfred van Breda, gIMpSTa, Matthew Flynn, Ant, Stephan Segraves and Dan.

This is a crop maze in Dingle, Ireland which celebrates the local hero, Fungi the Dolphin (it’s supposed to be a picture of a dolphin, and the text reads “Fungi 20 years in Dingle”). Apparently, Fungi is a bottlenose dolphin who took up residence in Dingle Harbour in 1984 and has been entertaining locals and tourists ever since. The Do Dingle Website says:

He is a curious and friendly animal, and has been photographed bringing gifts to divers of still living fish, clasped gently within his jaws

Make of this story what you will

Thanks to Tom.