Mullaghfarna

Nearest town:

Ballymote (10km W)

OS reference:

G757119

OS sheet:

Latitude:

54° 3' 20.22 N

Longitude:

8° 22' 15.94 W

Added to TMA by

FourWinds

Images (12)
Videos (1)
News (1)
Topics (1)

Images

Image of Mullaghfarna (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by ryaner

Across one of the hut sites towards Doonaveeragh mountain.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jun 25, 2019

Most of the hut sites are about this size, about 10 metres diameter.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jun 25, 2019

Some of the hut sites have a diameter of 20 metres. Most have double-walling, with rubble infill.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jun 25, 2019

Hut site with particularly defined entrance on its southern arc.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jun 25, 2019

Another hut site towards the east of the plateau.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jun 25, 2019

Across another hut site towards the main Carrowkeel hill with the largest concentration of tombs. The horizontal line just above the middle of the shot is the chasm between Mullaghfarna and Carrowkeel.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jun 25, 2019

Hut site with excavated interior.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jun 25, 2019

Natural bullaun at Mullaghfarna.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jun 25, 2019

The edge of one of the hut sites has this gorgeous orthostatic piece of limestone.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jun 25, 2019

From Cairn O, the limestone pavement has approx 150 hut sites, some built on the pavement, some with their interiors excavated out of the bedrock.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jun 25, 2019

On the Mullaghfarna plateau looking south to Doonaveeragh mountain with Cairns O and P.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jun 25, 2019

The approach to the Mullaghfarna plateau. The ‘stairs’ up the cliff are to the right of wall in the middle.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jun 25, 2019

Articles

Creating Space: Thoughts on place making & clustered house remains in prehistoric Ireland

YouTube video of a talk by Dr. Stefan Bergh, surveyor and excavator at Mullaghfarna.

ryaner Jun 25, 2019

Mullaghfarna

5,000-year-old settlement found in Sligo

Rhiannon Jul 18, 2003

Belfast Telegraph > News Publication Date: 17 July 2003

By Anita Guidera
email: [email protected]

THE Republic’s largest Neolithic settlement dating back 5,000 years has been uncovered on a remote mountain – more than 100 years after the site was first mapped by archaeologists.

A small team, led by Dr Stefan Bergh of the Department of Archaeology of NUI Galway, working on the plateau at Mullaghfarna, 250 feet above Lough Arrow, Co Sligo, discovered artefacts which link the site to the late Stone Age, 2,500 to 3,000 years before Christ.

The existence of some of the 140 hut sites and enclosures high up on the plateau in the Brickleigh mountains, surrounded by cliffs and passage tombs has been known to archaeologists since 1911 but until now the age of the settlement has remained a mystery.

“This has remained one of the most enigmatic places in Irish pre-history.

“It has always been a main focus of research but it could not be fully interpreted because we did not have a date for it,” explained Dr Bergh.

All this changed two weeks ago, when Dr Bergh and a small group of students from NUI Galway, uncovered a collection of cremated bones, teeth of animals, hazelnut shells, charcoal, small pieces of pottery and small tools, including an Antrim flint knife and some concave scrapers, as well as black flint debris on three separate trial digs on the 60,000 square metres limestone plateau.

“These finds are very significant for the time period and all date to the Neolithic period, although exact dates will not be known until the artefacts are carbon dated,” Dr Bergh said.