Sites in the Carrowmore Complex

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Images

Image of Carrowmore Complex by GLADMAN

Since a scan of archive print I can’t recall the exact monument :-)

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image of Carrowmore Complex by Vicster

Having confused tomb numbers I THINK this is tomb 3 but could be wrong!

Image of Carrowmore Complex by CianMcLiam

This is either site 9 or 11, Burl points out that in any other part of the country these would be recognised as typical stone circles and from this pic you would have to agree. There are more stones just right of the frame. It was so cold at dawn that two pairs of gloves still left my hands cold in the atlantic breeze.

As usual, Maeve looks on from on top of Knocknarea.

Image credit: Ken Williams - www.shadowsandstone.com
Image of Carrowmore Complex by CianMcLiam

Just about sums it up: “Irish Planning Regulations” is an oxymoron! The whole area of Carrowmore is covered in masts, barns and houses.

Image credit: Ken Williams
Image of Carrowmore Complex by CianMcLiam

The rain stopped all of a sudden, and out popped a rainbow and some sun, against a stormy sky. Magic.

Image credit: Ken Williams
Image of Carrowmore Complex by Cursuswalker

The section of Carrowmore 57 that lies on the other side of a fence

Image credit: Cursuswalker

Articles

Carrowmore Complex

26/08/2019 – It was afternoon by the time we reached Carrowmore. I was tired. We had made the journey over Knocknarea and then walked the quiet roads to here. It was a welcome sight to see a coffee shop/van next to the visitors centre with a few outside tables and chairs. I needed a rest and a coffee (plus iced dough ring). Then with my power up, it was time to enter Carrowmore.

There’s a nice few info rooms to walk through and you can get a map (and an audio guide if you want) to the site. The rain had started to fall now but nothing too bad. We made a slow walk round the grassy fields, tomb after tomb. The place is jampacked with them. Each with their own little character. You don’t get access to them all but the walk takes you past a good enough number. I think I read that 65 tomb monuments were noted in the 1800’s but only about 30 survive today. The earliest dating from around 3700 BCE. No access to Site 7 at the moment which is a shame but you can still view it from afar. Site 51 is a bit mad. Great tomb hiding in a reconstruction cairn held in place with lots of wire. I wasn’t that keen but Mrs T liked it.

I can’t remember how many tombs the walk takes you on, both sides of the road, maybe around the 15 mark. I liked the little ones the best like site 54.

It was a great afternoon spent there and it really is a must see place.

We left to make the slow walk back to Sligo. The roads are OK-ish to walk. A few fast cars, fat trucks and big tractors but nothing too bad, we survived to tell the tale.

Carrowmore Complex

This is one of those sites that takes your breath away. Despite the rain and mist, which meant we didn’t get to see the site in the context of the surrounding landscape, this felt like one of those places where things just fit together.

I was with my mum, so decided it would be worthwhile taking the guided tour, so that she could have a better understanding of what we were looking at. As it turned out, I too ended up feeling like I understood this place better after spending an hour with the fabulous OPW guide. She was interested AND interesting, answering questions but also asking for our opinions and she skillfully avoided responding to the only other 2 people on our tour who seemed to be into biblical/creationist archaeology and kept referring to Noah a lot! Odd. Mind you, it was raining quite heavily.

She led us on a (chronological) spiral journey through the various sites, explaining the relevance to the surrounding hills (which we couldn’t really see) She also advised us which of the other sites (which weren’t on the tour) we should visit and went into detail about which sites had been excavated and/or altered, so that we got a sense of how this landscape would’ve looked when littered with these amazing burial/ritual sites.

If you come here with non-stoney folk in tow, I would recommend taking the tour for their sake as my mum was as giddy as a kipper by the end of it all – she said she could now understand why I am so enthusaistic about all things old and stoney and spent most of the next day asking me hundreds of questions. Some achievement!

Carrowmore Complex

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.

Miscellaneous

Carrowmore Complex

A list, taken from the Inventory of megalithic tombs of Co. Sligo:

Carrowmore (P1) G661337
Carrowmore (P2) G661337
Carrowmore (P3) G661337
Carrowmore (P4) G662338
Carrowmore (P7) G663339
Carrowmore (P9) G665341
Carrowmore (W-M9a) G664343
Tobernaveen (P10) G665345
Carrowmore (P13) G664338
Carrowmore (P15) G664337
Carrowmore (P16) G664336
Carrowmore (P17) G665336
Carrowmore (P18) G665335
Carrowmore (P19) G665334
Carrowmore (P22) G666333
Carrowmore (P23) G666333
Carrowmore (P26) G665333
Carrowmore (P27) G665332
Carrowmore (P32) G665330
Carrowmore (P36) G663329
Graigue (P37) G663329
Carrowmore (P48) G661333
Carrowmore (P49) G660333
Carrowmore (P51) Listoghil G662334
Carrowmore (P52) G661335
Carrowmore (P54) G661335
Carrowmore (P56) G662335
Carrowmore (P57) G662335
Carrowmore (P58) G663336
Carrowmore (P59) G663336
Barnasrahy (P62) G659353
Barnasrahy (P63) G659353
Cloverhill or Knocknashammer G670335
Grange North G639344
Knocknarea South G626347
Knocknarea South – Maeve’s Cairn G626346
Knocknarea South G626345
Knocknarea South G626340