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Fieldnotes
| We visited Carrowmore on a drizzly day and missed much of the view of Sligo one gets from the complex, which was a shame. There are an impressive number of tombs here in a tiny area, and in various states of preservation. Being with non-megarak family members meant I couldn't help feeling self-conscious gleefully bounding around the place photographing every rock that stuck out of the ground. My family were interested at first, but after about an hour of being rained on, the advantages of walking around a field full of rocks were rapidly waning as far as they were concerned. We returned to the Visitor's Centre and I was granted a brief visit over the road to Tombs 1-7, with strict orders to return quickly or lose body-parts. Tomb 7 I will not forget in a hurry. As soon as I had settled myself in the chamber of the dolmen for a brief bit of megalithic contemplation, a bullock nosed right up to the entrance and stood sniffing the air in the tomb inches from my face. I don't mind admitting I can be a bit of a big girl's blouse when it comes to bullocks and on this occasion I froze and felt my heart begin to leap into my throat. He obviously could not see me and my smell was making him nervous. Looking back now it's obvious that one movement from me would have caused him to bolt, but at the time this didn't even occur to me. Eventually he got bored and walked off. I can't convey it in writing, but it was somehow an incredibly intense, and not entirely negative, experience. Being one of those druidy types I tend to like reading meaning into such encounters. The meaning I gleaned from this incident, distilled into a phrase, was "Fair enough. Have your little sit in here, but remember you actually belong elsewhere" Such overactive imaginings can make sense when one is sitting in a tomb, I always find. Walking away from Tomb 7 I was smiling at my unexpected experience, as the visit to Carrowmore had been very practical and down to earth up to that point. "Fair enough" I said to myself, with a last, very respectful, glance back at the tomb. This post appears as part of the weblog entry Sligo and Meath
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Posted by Cursuswalker14th February 2004ce Edited 14th February 2004ce
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