Ancestry research informs me I am about 95% Irish.
My paternal grandmother was born in Ireland, so I’m eligible for dual citizenship. I never felt a need to apply for the Irish passport that comes with that designation and I’ve never been to the Emerald Isle, although I’ve seen it from the air when flying to England and Scotland.
Basically, we were reared as Americans by my mother, who pushed aside the Irish connection because she had faced anti-Irish discrimination in her younger years, although my father did tend to wax poetic each year as St. Patrick’s Day approached.
Despite my mother’s efforts, I do, at times, sense that strange link, as strong as it is invisible, to my Celtic origins.
But I don’t require a passport to feel as though I’m immersed in Celtic culture. All I have to do is drive an hour north to Columcille Megalith Park, a private nonprofit venture that celebrates Celtic heritage in a marvelous mixture of physical presence and spiritual aura. It was created to be a place of renewal and transformation. I think it’s a magical place.
A handsome chunk of Celtic myth and mystery in our neighboring Northampton County, Columcille is considered a sacred place and outdoor sanctuary, an open space which welcomes people of all faiths and traditions. It has been recognized by the National Museum of Art at the Smithsonian Institution as a cultural heritage site.
It’s tucked into the Kittatinny Ridge in Upper Mount Bethel Township, a place where the Appalachians stretch to the sky, with sweeping hills, deep lakes and handsome glens that look untouched by man.
But the truly unexpected and astonishing park has been touched by man in an exceptional way with cranes, backhoes and bulldozers to re-create here in America mysterious standing stone look-alikes and ancient structures built by hand centuries ago by the Celts.
The park was created by William Cohea Jr., who died at 91 in 2018. A Presbyterian minister and human rights activist on sabbatical in 1977, he visited the ancient ruins on the Isle of Iona off the western coast of Scotland. While there he dreamed he was surrounded by a circle of huge stones.
A year later he founded the nonprofit Columcille Foundation “to promote transformation through inner and outer work,” and began work on the park, which he called, “a place for tired sinners and reluctant saints.” Rooted in Celtic spirituality, it is meant to be a place of healing.
Cohea and a son built by hand a six-sided stone chapel the founder named St. Colum’s Chapel in honor of the saintly 6th-century Irish monk (Colum Cille in Gaelic) who had founded a monastery on Iona.
Shortly after the chapel was built. the St. Oran Bell Tower, based on 8th-century Irish ruins was completed. Then came a circle of 6-foot-tall standing stones, similar to the ancient ones still seen in Ireland.
Over a period of 40 years Cohea, volunteers and the giant machines have pushed into place the prehistoric-appearing dolmen named Thor’s Gate, the Glen of the Guardians, an area called The Chambers and a 20-foot-tall menhir named Mannanan, weighing 45 tons. Today there are more than 90 standing stones and a mile-long system of trails and meditation sites in the park.
Columcille does offer a sense of peace and contemplation. Even snow-covered as it is now in March, it is a beautiful and comforting place with a mystical appeal for visitors who are welcomed with this greeting, “Come as you are, go in peace.” In other seasons it is glorious, colorful in both spring and autumn, and cool in the deep greens of summer.
Normally, Columcille sponsors a series of events. Although the park is open to the public daily from dawn through dusk, this year all public gatherings have been canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Festivals at Columcille often mark the ancient Celtic holidays, such as Imbolc in February, which celebrates the beginning of spring, and Lughnasadh, which marks summer’s end; Samhain (our Halloween) and the Winter Solstice in December.
For more information, view columcille.org.
kathrynfclark@verizon.net
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