We don't know how our Stone Age forebears comported themselves as they gathered around Newgrange in anticipation of the winter solstice. Perhaps they spent the time interviewing each other about what it all meant.
Maybe they sent their local worthies into the passageway to ooh and aah at the spectacle. But they certainly didn't design their remarkable light show with television in mind. The pity was that the makers of yesterday morning's live broadcast didn't seem to have considered how best to adapt their own techniques to convey the magic of the event.
The curse of television lies in never understanding that less is more. We saw it in British channels' coverage of the eclipse and saw (or rather heard) it again yesterday in RTE's broadcast from Newgrange. The babble of vox-pops, expert witnesses and VIPs drained all resonance from the occasion.
The jerky, uncalled-for cutting from one location to another would have been annoying at any time; here it was infuriating. The fact is - RTE made a mess of it. A camera strategically placed, Internet-style, in one position would have been much better. They certainly couldn't blame the weather. Having made the decision to kick off its millennium celebrations with this broadcast, RTE was blessed with a stunningly beautiful winter's morning.
The low-slanting light streaming over the hill and into the passage was a photographer's dream. As the huge stones turned golden, we could settle back and appreciate the spectacle. This was what it was all about - or so we thought. But almost immediately we cut back to Bryan Dobson in the interpretative centre, and then to Joe Duffy outside the passageway, with mobile phones ringing around him.
It was inevitable that Enya would crop up somewhere on the soundtrack, but we also got Baby Enya - Emer Quinn - delivering two ditties called Invocation and Illumination. The association of pre-Christian Ireland with a certain kind of breathy, female elevator muzak seems unavoidable these days although, for all we know, neolithic music might have been far closer to bangin' techno than New Age noodling.
By 9.10 a.m. the impression was that we were rising to a climax of some sort, but the bitty presentation only served to make us more envious of the privileged few inside the mound. "They'll be seeing the light entering the chamber just about now," Dobson intoned.
Just at that moment, Bertie, Celia and the rest of them emerged, blinking, into the open. Maybe they were getting out quickly to allow the camera in - seconds later, we actually got to see the chamber illuminated by sunlight. Surely it would have been possible to rig a Bertiecam, Donal MacIntyre-style, to some portion of our leader's anatomy, so he could share the moment with us all?
Seamus Heaney's poem, A Dream of Solstice, was tacked on to the end of the broadcast, but could have been more appropriately read during the event itself, surrounded by a little stillness and silence. No such chance; Bryan Dobson didn't seem to see the irony when, at the end of this deeply disappointing programme, artist Emer O'Connor told him that she saw the new millennium as an opportunity to "take this time to be silent". Don't bet on it, Emer.