Attraction in County Sligo

Carrowkeel in the Bricklieve Mountains of County Sligo is a cairn cemetery of fourteen Neolithic passage tombs dating from approximately 3000 BC, a remarkable concentration of prehistoric monuments set on a series of limestone ridges with commanding views over the surrounding Sligo landscape, Lough Arrow below and the distant profiles of Knocknarea and the Ben Bulben plateau visible to the north. The combination of the elevated setting, the multiple tombs of considerable scale and the views make Carrowkeel one of the most impressive and most atmospheric Neolithic sites in Ireland. The tombs are all passage tombs of the classic Irish Neolithic type, with a central chamber accessed through a narrow stone passage and covered by a circular cairn of stone and earth. The Carrowkeel tombs are less excavated and less heavily visited than the more famous Brú na Bóinne complex in Meath, preserving an atmosphere of untouched wilderness that Newgrange, with its visitor facilities, cannot provide. The approach across the open limestone hillside to the cairns, with the views expanding at every step, is one of the most rewarding walks to any prehistoric site in Ireland. Cairn G at Carrowkeel has an alignment similar to Newgrange in that the rising sun at the summer solstice illuminates the chamber through a roofbox above the entrance, demonstrating that the solar alignment of passage tombs was not unique to the Boyne Valley complex but was a widespread practice in the Irish Neolithic tradition.

Carrowmore near Sligo town is the largest and one of the oldest megalithic cemetery complexes in Ireland, a collection of over sixty prehistoric monuments including passage tombs, dolmens and stone circles covering a wide area of the lowland plain below the great cairn of Queen Maeve on Knocknarea to the west. The oldest monuments at Carrowmore have been dated to approximately 5,500 years ago, making them among the earliest megalithic monuments in western Europe and among the oldest passage tombs in Ireland, predating Newgrange by several centuries. The scale and variety of the Carrowmore complex is immediately impressive. The monuments range from small boulder circles enclosing central megalithic structures to larger and more elaborate passage tombs of considerable ambition, and their distribution across the flat limestone plain creates a landscape of concentrated archaeological significance that has been compared to the great cemetery landscapes of the Boyne Valley and the Orkneys. Many of the monuments are well preserved, retaining the structural logic of their original construction in a way that allows the visitor to understand the Neolithic building tradition. The Visitor Centre at Carrowmore provides interpretation of the complex and manages access to the most significant monuments. The combination of the archaeological interest, the views to the surrounding Sligo landscape including the dramatic profile of Knocknarea above the plain and the exceptional age of the monuments makes Carrowmore one of the most significant prehistoric heritage sites in Ireland.