Visited 23rd March 2004: This was one of those mad visits when you ask yourself, “why am I doing this?“. I’d already tried to find Creggandevesky earlier in the day, and decided that I’d better quit and see Beaghmore before I ran out of time. Having seen Beaghmore a second attempt was foolish, given that our flight out of Belfast wasn’t far off. But it bugged me that I’d not found it earlier in the day, so I had one last crack at it.
With some help from the GPS (forgotten earlier in the day) I found the footpath leading to the tomb. Then the heavens opened up, and I had second thoughts. It bucketed it down, and I knew I hadn’t got the time to sit it out, so I got out the car and started walking. Within metres I was drenched, and I couldn’t see through my glasses. The GPs was just about readable, and I could see the lake, so I staggered on through significant amounts of mud.
The rain stopped as I reached the tomb, and it took a while to figure out what it looked like (had to clean my glasses). It was weird landing up at a site having had no sensible visual clues as to what you were about to see. The tomb is impressive (not that I have many court tombs to compare it to) but fenced too closely. It’s solid, but graceful; the photos show it better than I could describe. Lough Mallon makes for a beautiful setting, and when the sun started shining and a rainbow came out I felt a lot happier. It was a short visit though.
I ran back to the hire car. On the way I passed a broken wooden sign hidden behind a wall directing visitors to the tomb. After a morning of driving in circles, more evidence that some people don’t want visitors to Creggandevesky. I had to change into dry clothes in the car, then after a hair-raising drive back to Belfast to collect Lou, we did make our flight.