Loughcrew: The Equinox Sunrise in Cairn T

Loughcrew spreads passage tombs across four hilltops — Carnbane East, Carnbane West, Carrickbrack and Patrickstown — and they are around 5,000 years old, contemporary with the Boyne tombs but without the crowds or the visitor centre. In 1980 the researcher Martin Brennan worked out that Cairn T on Carnbane East is aligned on the rising sun at the spring and autumn equinoxes: the light runs down the passage and lands on the carved backstone, the same trick as Newgrange but twice a year instead of once. For now the OPW has closed the interior of Cairn T for conservation works, so people gather outside it at dawn.