Carrowmore, Ireland

Carrowmore, near Sligo, is the largest megalithic tomb site in Ireland, and is also one of the oldest. The oldest tombs are more than 700 years older than the more famous Newgrange site.


These primitive megalithic tombs are more simple and stylistically different from the later tombs found at Newgrange and other sites. The controversial early dates ascribed to these structures challenge the traditional assumptions about the cultural spread of this way of memorialising the dead across the island.

The other fascinating thing about this site is the huge cairns that were constructed on the hilltops around this site. Imagine the effort that must have gone into quarrying and transporting stones all the way up to produce that little lump on the mountain below.

The dominant cairn is visible at Knocknarea below. There is still a tradition of tourists walking up the hill to the cairn with a stone and adding it to the pile, so that the cairn continues to grow. A local legend says that this is the grave of Maeve, a Celtic Warrior Queen. Our tour guide took great delight in telling us what a tough woman Maeve was, in death as well as in life. According to the legend, she was buried standing up in full armour, with her spear, facing her enemy the King of Ulster. The tradition of placing your stone on top of the cairn was to keep her down there so she couldn't come back and make trouble.

The difficulty with this marvellous story, as will so many marvellous stories, is that the dates don't add up. According to archaeological dating of the cairn, the cairn predates Maeve by an implausible amount. It's still a good story that I choose to embrace it anyway.

The cairn below was reconstructed quite recently on the site of an original cairn, progressively removed by farmers to build stone walls and other structures. In a kind of natural justice the OPW dismantled all the fences on this land to rebuild the missing cairn.