| Looking west to Tievebawn mountain, a part of the Dartry or Carbury mountains. The highest cave in Ireland, Diarmuid and Grainne's cave is in the cliffs at the extreme right, while Cormac Reagh's Hole is in the cliffs at the right of Tievebawn. Eagles Rock and the landstack called known as the Hags Leap can be seen on the left. |
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The Gleniff Horseshoe is a fabulous glacial valley in the north side of Dartry mountain, in Carbury, north Sligo. The valley was formed during the last ice age when glaciers more than a kilometer thick covered the landscape. As the ice melted the glacier retreated north towards the coast and gouged a huge hollow out of the mountain, leaving the fertile plain of Carbury (the old kingdom of north Sligo) behind it. This area was inhabited during the mesolithic period - the old stone age - from about 8,000 years ago, by groups of hunter gatherers who roamed the land. The magnificent landscape of north Sligo must have been very attractive to them and teeming with wildlife. The landscape would have been covered with forest: hazel, ash, rowen and oak. The early inhabitants eventually settled down and became Ireland's first farmers, keeping cattle sheep and pigs. It is quite likely that the valley with its cave high up in the cliffs was sacred to the early inhabitants of north Sligo.
The Cliffs of Annacuna, site of the Gleniff Byrites mines, taken in mid December 2011. I have made a seperate page for the local megalithic monuments which are spread out along the northern slopes of the mountains. There was a megalithic structure in the mouth of the Gleniff valley, a Trillick (three legged structure) as they are called in this area. The Trillick may have been a dolmen or a wedge type monument. It was destroyed around 1950 by a gravel quarry, and just one picture of the monument surviving. I have come to believe that the court cairns, the social monuments of the neolithic may well be replicas of the Gleniff valley, the court representing the valley and the chamber representing the cave at the back. There is another cave, Cormac Reagh's Hole up high in the cliffs in the north face of Tievebawn, just north of the entrance to the valley with two court cairns nearby at the foot of the steep slope.
The spectacular head of Benwisken, the water or wave shaped mountain at the entrance to the Gleniff valley is one of the most strangely shaped mountains in Ireland. Researcher Chris McClintock has suggested the peak may be the tusk of the boar of Benbulben. The cave is in the cliffs to the left. The Byrites mines At the back of the Horseshoe in the cliffs of Annacuna, and beyond in the townland of Glencarbury, a mine was worked for almost 100 years. Byrites, a heavy stone that looks like dull rock quartz was mined and transported down the mountain. The ore was washed and transported by rail through Ballintrillick village and down past Creevykeel and Gorevan's pub, to the harbour at Mullaghmore. The railway was built by Henry Mount Temple, better known as Lord Palmerston, who inherited a chunk of land by Mullaghmore in north Carbury in 1802. Several different companies ran the mines, and the history of the operations has been published in a local guidebook, as has Palmerston's harbour project at Mullaghmore. The main site of the mining operations is about a 30 minute hike up the old road past the Cliffs of Annacuna to Glencarbury where a large seam of byrites was mined. Several old buildings and pieces of machinery remain on the site. The oar was processed in a washing shed and then transported down the mountain on a wire cable, some of which still remains on the Glencar side of the mountain. Truskmore plancrash 1943 During World War II Dartry mountain and the north coast of Sligo was used as an air corridor by US bombers. On 9th December 1943 a B17 Flying Fortress with the ID Gaza King, flying through dense cloud, crashed into the summit of Tievebawn on the east or Horseshoe side of the mountain. A few meters higher and the plane would have missed the mountain, a few meters lower and everyone would have been killed; as it was two of the eight crew members died in the crash and another died later in Sligo hospital.
A B17 Flying Fortress similar to the one that crashed into Tievebawn. Image from http://www.warbirddepot.com/ A local rescue team was assembled to climb Tievebawn and bring down the bodies and wounded men, who were carried down on makeshift stretchers. One of the airmen had to be dug out from under the plane. The wreckage of the plane has mostly disappeared over the years. In 2005 two of the engines were lifted by helicopter and taken to Dublin. A full account of the Tievebawn crash can be downloaded on PDF at this link. |
Benwisken and Benbulben, two of the most distcintive heads or peaks around Carbury Mountain. |
