The highlight of our drive from Galway in the central west of Ireland to Buncrana on the Inishowen Peninsula in the north of Ireland and just to the west of Northern Ireland was definitely the Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery near Sligo. To think that we nearly skipped this when our GPS steered us wrong! We saw road signs a little later and followed them to the correct destination. What we found was powerful. Acres of megalithic stone circles, passage tombs, and large cairns on mountaintops. Some of them were on public land and many others were in private pastures.
You can find photos of the self tour guide here and here if you are interested in reading more.
The next two photos are of a large stone circle bisected by a fence, so part of it is on private land.
Above: another wildflower photographer. The pony kept interfering because he wanted a snack. This is what he was trying to photograph:
And since we’re on the subject of wildflowers:
Note the cairn on top of the mountain in the distance is lined up with the passage into this tomb. This is Tomb 7 in the literature – the most well preserved and beautiful of the circles and tombs we saw, and you had to step carefully to avoid the cow patties.
We made stops in Knock (a religious shrine disturbing for the amount of plastic paraphernalia for sale along its main street) and Letterkenny (where we saw the work of a great Irish artist (name to be updated) and it would be worth making another trip to visit the Glebe House and Gallery) but Carrowmore left our minds full of wonder.
slowly she turned 