Carrowkeel 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.