In ancient Egypt, obelisks were carved in homage to the sun god, Ra. Indeed, obelisks, or ‘tekhenu’, as the Egyptians called them, were thought of as petrified sun beams. Given the link to Ra, they were often found at the entrances to temples and had celestial alignments. The second largest obelisk in the world is found in the middle of the Phoenix Park, built for (and by!) Dubliner the Duke of Wellington to commemorate his victory over a wee French chap by the name of Napoleon.
That’s why, when a friend told me that there was an obelisk sitting in a nondescript part of Adamstown, I was, to put it mildly, skeptical. Adamstown has a poor track record of producing military heros and an even poorer record of Egyptian sun worship cults. Still, though, it had me intrigued. I had been told that it wasn’t that old – maybe 2009 or 2010. This was yet more curious still. The Lucan area has a surprisingly small amount of public art installations. Why would there be an obelisk?
The public art that does exist is interesting nonetheless. Katherine Lamb’s rather magnificent stained glass ‘Lucan Portrait’ hangs in the foyer of Lucan Library. Anyone familiar with the St. Finian’s estate in Lucan will also have seen the bronze statues of two children at play – Sugar and Spice. The Íontas mother and baby statue sits in the courtyard of Lucan Community College. And my own personal favourite, the alabaster carvings that hang on the wrong side of the Griffeen Bridge in Lucan Village. There was originally an oculus left in the wall around the corner to allow people to view it, but it was blocked up a long time ago. You can still see it, though, if you walk to the far side of the bridge, away from the village shops, and lean over.
I set out with a friend to find the obelisk. It is night-time and the Adamstown streets are quiet. I haven’t googled anything about the obelisk as I want to find it myself. Traditionally, obelisks were placed in theatrical locations, such as enhancing the approach to a religious site. I want to experience how the obelisk will reveal itself and what its placement is trying to show. This will also be a good opportunity to explore Adamstown a little.
I remember the beginnings of Adamstown back in 2005. It was the first planned town in Ireland in almost 50 years, winning international awards for something that Lucan never had: proper spatial planning. We enter at the Paddocks and make our way up towards Tandy’s Lane Park. We look down each of the streets as we pass them – Paddocks Drive, Paddocks Road … no obelisk.
I was never a particularly big fan of the name ‘the Paddocks’. It seemed a little too gentrified for my liking. Indeed, I always thought that the name of Hillcrest, where I live, was also little too unambitious. Tandy’s Lane Park, on the other hand, does exactly what it says on the tin. It is a park and it is built next to Tandy’s Lane. A perfect name.
On my right, there is a mixture of building work and untrammeled fields. I believe that there are plans to eventually build a primary school on this site. There is also a rather magnificent purple-lit sycamore tree. Just past the park, civilisation begins again. The park itself is particularly dark at nighttime with no lighting whatsoever. As we pass it, a person running away from something emerges from the darkness at the park holding what looks to be a questionably-liberated take away delivery bag. He has clearly had to run for longer than planned and runs a little too close to me for comfort.
We are now in the St. Helen’s district of Adamstown. St. Helens is named for St. Helen’s House, which can be seen from many different angles in the park during the daylight. Right now, I can see its illuminated upstairs windows as it settles down for the night. The house, a Victorian build, was owned by the Stassen family for a long while, famous for bringing Liga to Ireland.
To our left, the bushes and fences that mark the boundary of Finnstown Castle. We walk past it, turning left up Adamstown Way, entering the Stratton area of Adamstown. Stratton is a new name on me. I don’t know it. I haven’t come across it in Lucan history. However, it sounds plausible that it is named for a local family.
As we reach Adamstown Avenue, we see a well-lit outdoor football pitch attached to a building. It seems to be either a sports ground or a school. We are not sure, so we follow along the fencing until we find our answer. As we walk up Castlegate Terrace, we find ourselves between both Adamstown Community College and the Educate Together school. Ahead, there is only darkness. “I think that’s the train track in front of us”, I say. Seconds later, a train of ridiculous length passes by.
We make our way back to Castlegate Copse, a ‘copse’ being a patch of forest where wood is harvested without actually cutting down a tree. Suddenly, to my right, I see it; back-lit by distant lighting, the dark and looming presence of a 20 foot obelisk. “Huh,” I say. “It’s an obelisk alright.” It has no theater, however, and simply sits in the middle of a road in the housing development crying out for an oul’ temple to be built beside it.
We make our way to it. This is a no-nonsense obelisk. We make our way around it, looking for symbols or markings to explain it. There are, literally, none. A word to all of you wannabe obelisk designers out there – archeologists have the hardest time deciphering 3,000 year old obelisks. To have no markings on a modern one isn’t fair. You’re just making it unnecessarily more difficult for future archeologists to figure out its story.
The next day, I return by myself in the daylight to look again. I have since learned that the obelisk was erected in 2009 to officially open Adamstown and has a time capsule buried beneath it. In the ancient past, obelisks were aligned to the sun or to another celestial event. I wonder if this obelisk is the same – albeit probably accidentally. I bring a compass and take some readings. I learn that the Adamstown obelisk is within 10 degrees of being precisely aligned along an East-West axis on Castlegate Copse. That means that it has a similar alignment to the famous Cairn T of Loughcrew, one of Ireland’s great stone-age monuments. The Adamstown Obelisk is, therefore, like Loughcrew, almost perfectly aligned to the equinox, the sun rising to the east and setting to the west. Or, at least, it’s within ten degrees of that. Meaning that it aligns with the day before the equinox. Or maybe the day after.