Megalithic Art at Midnight: King’s Mountain, Co. Meath

~ George Crawford ~ Leave a comment

ShadowsandStone's avatarShadows and Stone Blog

Down a narrow track off a minor country road, the pillar at King’s Mountain sits upright in a field like a beautifully decorated standing stone. This stone however is quite special, being the solitary remaining roofstone or lintel of a long destroyed passage tomb type monument which had been built around 5,500 years ago. Just five kilometers away is one of Ireland’s greatest passage tomb cemeteries from the Neolithic or Late Stone Age, the Loughcrew complex of decorated chambered tombs. These are also visible against the sky from this spot.  Meath is a relatively low lying county so even though the hills at Loughcrew are not particularly high, they do dominate the lowlands for many miles around.

Though they had been noted by a Miss Beaufort in 1828, the passage tombs at Loughcrew were first formally described by Eugene Conwell in 1864 and presented as ‘The Tomb of Ollamh Fodhla’ in…

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The Wood Turner

~ George Crawford ~ 1 Comment

A great short film about a bowl being turned on a treadle lathe.

http://

Info from the Vimeo Page:

Shot in a couple of hours on 2 separate afternoons, this is Leo who lives in a yurt with his partner and a variety of animals on the edge of Exmoor in the UK.
He is a craftsman of many talents, and this film shows him turning a piece of wood into a beautiful bowl using a traditional foot powered lathe (which he also built himself).
We started shooting on the first afternoon, but one of his sheep escaped, so we had to shoot the rest the following afternoon. Unfortunately, the weather was far from perfect and was actually raining lightly.
It doesn’t take him long to turn one of these bowls, and watching him work was a real pleasure.

Music –
Conversations with Angels – Luke Richards
Inner Dream – Barrie Gledden.

All shot using Canon 7D with EF 24 -105, f4 lens.

Jay Nelson’s Constructs

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In searching for home-built campers, there were very few images on the web just a few years ago.  Jay Nelson came up a few times over the years due to his ingenious building of structures onto existing vehicles, compact car, scooter, boat, and now a truck.

CamperProfile

CamperOblique

CamperInterior

It’s my kind of work.  Low budget, simple, and highly functional alternatives to the mainstream consumption.

Honda Spree

But would I do this the the Vespa?  Maybe.

boat camper

Of course, my new truck is in sore need of a cool topper…

See more of Jay’s work on his site http://jaynelsonart.com/ or follow his blog on Tumblr.

Heritage and Preservation

~ George Crawford ~ 1 Comment

Imagine how different heritage preservation would be in America if our feeling of kinship and stewardship were more like those in Europe. If, instead of viewing the prehistoric heritage of the New World as something to exploit and profit from in a very short-sighted manner, we, as landowners were to view ourselves as caretakers of these treasures for future generations. Heritage management can be a very different model in other parts of the world.

heritageaction's avatarThe Heritage Journal

A guest post by Philip I. Powell. First published at
http://www.facebook.com/megalithicmonuments.ireland, reproduced with permission.

TOORMORE WEDGE TOMB

RMP No. CO148-001

A colleague, on a recent visit to a wedge tomb in west Cork, was shocked to find it being used as an out-house, containing trash bins, old rubbish and strewn with litter. I find this totally unacceptable, to see such callous disregard for a national monument and deeply concerned about what we really think about our national heritage. Is it that, unless it is given national attention via the state & independent media networks, we actually don’t care! Or are we saying that certain monuments deserve protection and others are perhaps not worthy of such protection.

All recorded archaeological monuments are protected under the National Monuments Acts 1930-2004 and this applies to every single one of them and not just the high profile monuments such as Newgrange,  Poulnabrone, the Hill of…

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Robin Wood, Traditional Craftsman

~ George Crawford ~ Leave a comment

Here’s another excellent video of Robin Wood, wood turner and traditional craftsman.  Visit his website to learn more about this remarkable man and his admirable career choice.  As he explains, his job is easy to describe while so many careers are just about impossible to explain what one does and we create fancy titles to describe what we do all day.

His website is: http://greenwood-carving.blogspot.com/