Navan Fort

It sits in Georgian terraces that make you think about how Enlightenment ideas travelled into Irish cities.

If you're a history buff, don't miss Navan Fort nearby, a large hill fort that served as an ancient ceremonial site for the Aoineil dynasty, and it's traditionally linked to the story of Brian Boru's rise to power in the early 11th century.

Speaking of Brian, there's a claim he was buried here at Armagh after his death in the Battle of Clontarf.

The annals say that his body was brought up to be interred at the cathedral, and that this cemented the city's religious significance even further.

The story we're closing on begins not with a king or a battle, but with the people who lived under hill forts and long-tended farms across an island that had no fixed borders at all.

From the Ulaid in Ulster, building their own capital at Emain Macha, to the Durotriges whose great fort stood at Maiden Castle, these tribes were organised as regional power blocs, almost like small nation-states.

Archaeology shows that this was not an isolated island society.

It had a very active maritime network reaching across the North Sea into Gaul, Belgium, and even further to the Mediterranean.

Tara, yes

... and Meath and Rathcroghan in the west of Ireland and Navan Fort or Emain Macha in the north are not obviously situated on major routeways.

All of them, in different ways, were located on high ground in important locations that probably were of some sanctity from at least the Neolithic.

So if you like, these places were important places with deep archaeological roots, both chronologically and, um, magically and, uh, religiously.

But the, the traditions are certainly there.

It's a place associated with royalty since time immemorial.

And that's why, in fact, um, the term royal site is used at places like Tara and, uh, Emain Macha at the Navan Fort and indeed Rathcroghan.

It's because they are associated in myth and legend with kings and queens.