Sacred Island Guided Tours homepage | Carrowkeel and Carrowmore neolithic complexes, County Sligo | Irish megalithic chambers

3rd January 2012. Rainbows over Monaincha abbey near Roscrea. Two photos stitched together, with different contrasts. The outer rainbow is clearer on the left, the inner clearer on the right. Monaincha means 'the Island in the Bog', and was the retreat house of several leading saints including Cronan of nearby Roscrea. It stood in a lake or bog until about 1790, and was one of the most famous pilgrimage sites in Ireland in its day. In the Book of Ballymote Monaincha was listed as the Thirty Third Wonder of the World. It was known as Inish na mBeo, the Island of the Living. The western doorway and inner chancel arch of the 12th century church are richly carved and a weathere high cross stands outside the door. The church is almost certainly the replica of a fabulous wooden original.

Guided Tours Types of Megaliths Creeveykeel Drumcliffe Second Battle of Moytura Lough Arrow The Labby Rock
Carrowkeel
Macalister's 1911 report Summer solstice Doonaveeragh Village Caves of Kesh Kesh Cairn Heapstown Cairn Knocknarea Queen Maeve's Cairn www.carrowmore.com The Boyne Valley

The great stone basin in the east passage of Knowth in the Boyne Valley.

Dolmen number 7 at Carrowmore in County Sligo, the largest cluster of megalithic monuments in Ireland

The Enchanted Caves of Kesh Corran by James Stephens.

Of all European lands I venture to say that Ireland is the most mystical, and, in the eyes of true Irishmen, as much the Magic Island of Gods and Initiates now as it was when the Sacred Fires flashed from its purple, heather−covered mountain−tops and mysterious round towers, and the Greater Mysteries drew to its hallowed shrines neophytes from the West as well as from the East, from India and Egypt as well as from Atlantis; and Erin's mystic−seeing sons still watch and wait for the relighting of the Fires and the restoration of the old Druidic Mysteries. Herein I but imperfectly echo the mystic message Ireland's seers gave me, a pilgrim to their Sacred Isle. And until this mystic message is interpreted, men cannot discover the secret of Gaelic myth and song in olden or in modern times, they cannot drink at the ever−flowing fountain of Gaelic genius, the perennial source of inspiration which lies behind the new revival of literature and art in Ireland, nor understand the seeming reality of the fairy races.

W. Y Evans Wentz, The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, 1911.

Welcome to Sacred Island guided tours website - based at Carrowkeel and www.carrowmore.com in the west of Ireland. My name is Martin Byrne, gardener, tour guide, traditional musician, artist and currently a carer. I live in Cliffoney, north Co. Sligo, near the massive court cairn at Creevykeel. For the past twenty years I have been researching megalithic monuments, ancient buildings with internal chambers found on mountain tops and across the landscape of Ireland. Recently I have been looking at other types of monuments, court cairns, which are much more common in Carbury.

I am constantly tweeking this website, adding new pages and images: I have hundreds of new photos of local sites. I took up the fiddle in 2003 and the banjo in 2011, inspired by the music of The Bothy Band. Our group, the Trad Counsel plays sessions in the pubs around Cliffoney over the summer months and we teach music here in the house on Tuesday evenings. My current job is as a full time carer.

Sunset near midsummer in Carrowkeel viewed from the chamber of Cairn G. This mound of stones has a slab-built chamber with a special slot or roofbox over the doorway that allows the sun to enter.

I originally became interested in the engraved symbols, on the stones, which are the oldest written documents in Ireland (3,500 - 2,900 BC). I have been looking at the solar and lunar alignments that illuminate interiors of monuments, the beautiful landscape settings in which they are located, and the wealth of mythological tales associated with these ancient structures. This website is a mixture of art, symbolism, archaeology, mythology and astronomical alignments - with Irish traditional tunes on the relevant pages.

I spent many years living below the neolithic cairns of Carrowkeel in the Bricklieve Mountains, near Lough Arrow in south Co. Sligo, a very beautiful part of the West of Ireland. I was privileged to rent a house on the Donkey Sanctuary run by Sue Paling, the nearest dwelling to Carrowkeel. The cairns contain chambers built of limestone slabs, several of which have fine corbelled roofs, which are artificial caves. The cairns are oriented to the sacred sites of Cuil Irra: Carrowmore and Knocknarea to the northwest.

Jo Coffey plays her harp in the enchanted caves of Kesh Corran in County Sligo, a wonderful series of mythological tunnels in the side of a giant fairy mountain.

There are 25 cairns in and around the Bricklieves, and many more sites are visible on nearby hills and mountains, most of which have important mythological associations. There is also a remarkable neolithic village on the flat plateau of Doonaveeragh Mountain and a fabulous series of caves in the side of the fairy hill of Kesh Corran at the west edge of the Bricklieves.

Across Lough Arrow from Carrowkeel is the fabulous ridge of Moytura, the site of the great mythological battle between the T™atha DÈ Danann, and the Formorians.The story was used as the basis for the plot of Starwars IV, A New Hope. Below Moytura by the river Uinshin is the great unopened cairn of Heapstown, the fourth largest monument in Ireland and healing well of the Tuatha De Danann.

Ireland's most ancient group of monuments are found on a plateau at Carrowmore, at the centre of the Coolrea Peninsula. There were at least 60 boulder circles with dolmens in Carrowmore; today twenty five monuments remain in varying states of repair. They have been identified as some of the earliest neolithic monuments in Europe. The circles were constructed over a long period beginning: there is evidence of fires from around 4,500 BC and buildings from about 3,600 BC. Carrowmore has its own web site at www.carrowmore.com.

To the west of the Carrowmore circles is the very beautiful Knocknarea mountain, one of the largest and most importany fairy hills in Connaught. The flat summit is capped by Queen Maeve's Cairn, a massive unopened neolithic mound of stones that can be seen many other sacred sites in the west of Ireland. Two more colossal unopened neolithic cairns cap the twin summits of Cairns Hill to the east of Carrowmore, overlooking Lough Gill.

Magical full moon rising over Copes Mountain, viewed from the massive Queen Maeve's cairn on Knocknarea in County Sligo, January 19th 2011. The flat stone in the foreground is the so called north marker stone.

The early Christian Monastic settlement on Inishmurray Island off the coast of County Sligo. Within the large stone cashel are several churches, a fine collection of cross-slabs and the famous Cursing Stones.

An 1877 watercolour of the court cairn, Toomnafoirmoire, or the Grave of the Great Man, gallery of a court cairn just north of Cliffoney village, drawn on the spot by William Wakeman. Copyright Sligo County Library.

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.

Kurt Vonnegut 1922 - 2007.

A painting of the 'DNA' cross slab from the Cashel on Inishmurray.

The next large concentration of chambered cairns is found at Loughcrew, 'The Mountains of the Hag' in Co. Meath, 55 miles east of Carrowkeel. Loughcrew bears the remains is one of Ireland's most spectacular sites, rich with early megalithic art spread out over three hills - the Witches Hops, near Oldcastle in County Meath. This fantastic site is well worth a visit, even though the key is hard to get these days. Two of the Loughcrew monuments have well documented astronomical orientations: Cairn T - the central monument is oriented to the sun and moon rises on the equinoxes; Cairn L is oriented to the sunrises in the first few days of November and February.

Equinox sunrise illuminates the cryptic engravings on the backstone of Cairn T, the central monument within the neolithic complex at Loughcrew in County Meath.

The sites of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, located in the beautiful Boyne Valley in Co Meath, are the best known of Ireland's ancient monuments. Newgrange is justafiably famous for it's alignment to the winter solstice sunrise. Knowth, the largest mound in Ireland has turned out to be a treasure-house of megalithic art. There are 18 satellite mounds around the main mound. Dowth, the house of darkness, is aligned to the Samhain, Imbolc and winter solstice sunsets. There are about 40 sites in and around the Boyne Valley. The important sites of Fourknocks and Tara, the ancient capital of Ireland, are close to the River Boyne.

A full size painting of the Entrance Stone at Newgrange in the Boyne Valley, County Meath. The stone is 3.5 meters or 10 feet long, and stands directly outside the entrance to the great mound. The colours are based on a photo in Michael Poynder's Pi in the Sky. Carved about 5,300 years ago, the Entrance Stone is the masterpiece of neolithic design and symbolism.

There are many more monuments beside these, which I am adding to my clickable Map of Ireland. Along the way you will find several other clickable maps which will take you into greater detail within an area. Lately I am out visiting sites again in the run up to 2012, and taking lots of photographs, the best of which can be viewed in my album, Recent Megalithic Visits, and other albums on facebook.

Enjoy your visit, Martin, 25 Jan 2012.

The prow shaped mountain called Benwisken in the Carbury mountains of north County Sligo, behind where I live. To the left is Diarmuid and Grainne's bed, the highest cave in Ireland. In the mythologycal tales of the Fianna, Diarmuid was killed here by the Green Eared boar of Benbulben; after his death his spirit was taken to Newgrange in County Meath where an 'aerial life' was put back into him by Aengus Og.