ABSTRACT
Tara is a prehistoric sacred site in County Meath that held a powerful place in the early medieval Irish imagination and acquired national significance as a symbolic center of sovereignty and over-kingship. Tara’s ritual importance to ancient peoples rested in its situation, which provided commanding views over an agriculturally rich landscape. It is a ridge 2 km long, rising to a height of 155 m, unimposing from the east but affording extensive views over a great part of the central plain from the west, while further afield Mount Leinster, the Slieve Blooms, and the Mourne Mountains are to be seen. Taken together these features place Tara in visual contact with one-fifth of the surface area of Ireland. To early farmers it was an ideal venue at which to intercede with the gods for the fertility of the lands below.
