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Fieldnotes
| 25/08/2019 – First full day in Sligo. What to do, what to do? We are on public transport all week so a bit restricted. Buses don’t get going until late morning on Sunday but there’s an early-ish train so we decided to go for that. Looking for a combination of hills and prehistory we picked for our first day a trip to Slieve Daeane. Short train ride (09:05 from Sligo) to Collooney. We headed along the Sligo Way north east through Union Wood (nice area) to Ballydawley then using the forest tracks past the stone row we climbed to the high point of the Sligo Way just south of the top. Leaving the track we made the short but steepish climb to the top of Slieve Daeane. There’s a decent sized cairn at the summit with a trigpoint on top. I bet the views from here are great on a good day. It wasn’t that day today. The cloud base was low. We sat next to the cairn, eating our butties, looking into not much of nothing. Good vibe to the place though. Next we made our way west to the cairn on top of Slieve Dargan about 800 metres away. The straight line distance is short but the cloud made things a bit tricky plus there’s a good down and up between the two tops, very steep, grassy slopes. The cairn on Slieve Dargan has a good sized footprint but it’s pretty trashed. It’s listed as a passage tomb but I couldn’t see any internal structure. Downhill and another 300 metres to the west is Cailleach a Vera’s House, a passage tomb on the last of the rises. The cloud had lifted by now so the view past the cairn to the landscape beyond was impressive as we made the approach. This is the pick of the three cairns we visited today. Visible passage and chamber which you can look down into. Really taken with this one and the location is excellent. Well worth a walk up. From here it’s only about 350 metres back to the Sligo Way path. The terrain is rough and a bit wet but nothing really to put you off. Meeting up again with the path, it was back west to Collooney to catch the train back to Sligo. A really nice day out. |
Posted by thelonious28th August 2019ce Edited 2nd September 2019ce
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Comments (5) |
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| Ah well done thelonious. You’re obviously more agile and determined than us. I looked at these three longingly from the track to the south last week but didn’t make the attempt with my 10 year old in tow. It’s a small world indeed. Nice one. |
Posted by ryaner28th August 2019ce |
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I'm stubborn when it comes to things like this, no doubt :-) To be honest the gap between the two Slieves was tough and not a great place for little legs. The above knee high grass hid a lot of holes. Tricky footing and steep. Probably much better in Spring before things start growing again. I really loved the whole Sligo area. So much to see and do. Very much enjoying your trip photos from the patch. |
Posted by thelonious 28th August 2019ce |
| Looking forward to anything else you post from your Sligo jaunt. |
Posted by ryaner 29th August 2019ce |
| Much applause for this. |
Posted by thesweetcheat29th August 2019ce |
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Thanks tsc. It's a lovely place. Everything feels connected in the landscape. |
Posted by thelonious 31st August 2019ce |
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