The spectacular view to the northwest from the Carrowkeel cairns.
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Carrowkeel - The Narrow Quarter Carrowkeel is one of the least known of Ireland's ancient sites, but without doubt it is the most spectacularly situated. The complex consists of a large group of megalithic monuments sited on the highest parts of the northern ends of the Bricklieve Mountains in south Co. Sligo. Carrowkeel is located on the western side of Lough Arrow, overlooking the village of Castlebaldwin. It is easy to find being well signposted from the main Dublin/Sligo (N4) road. The megalithic structures are situated in commanding positions at altitudes between 240 and 360 meters above sea level on north-facing bog-covered terraces. Some twenty one neolithic cairns stretch from Doonaveragh Mountain alongside Lough Arrow in the east, to the cairn known as The Pinnacle atop Kesh Corann in the west. The cairns are built with quarried limestone are visible from many miles around as small bumps on the ridges of the Bricklieves, particularly from the other mounds and monuments around the county.
This whole area was probably one of the most important centres of Ancient Ireland - Carrowmore and Carrowkeel are joined by the Uinshin river which flows from Lough Arrow to Ballisodare Bay - the main road in stone age times. It is a landscape rich with physical remains of the ancient past, and mythical echoes that can still be perceived in the majesty of the locations and views from the top of the mountains across the plains of Sligo. The name Bricklieve (Breac Sliabh) translates as Speckled Mountain, which is a series of parallel carboniferous limestone plateaus running in a north-west/south-east direction. This amazing topography was sculpted by the retreating galciers of the last ice age as they receeded to the north-west. Seen in an aerial photograph (bottom of page) or on maps, the shape of the mountains is not unlike a gigantic right hand, palm down, with four plateaus for fingers and cliff-edged valleys in between. Tully Mountain over to the west forms a 'thumb'.
Cairn B. Over to the west, the landscape is equally spectacular with grass covered cairn-topped hills, steep valleys and Kesh Corann looming like a great crouched beast in the distance. Indeed a local myth tells that Kesh was formed from the body of a gaint sow, and that the four smaller hills on the east side are her piglets. The Bricklieve mountains are about 30 square miles and have many kinds of monuments and settlements scattered about. There are several caves around Carrowkeel and many more in the sides of Kesh. Many millions of years ago all of this land was ocean floor and minute fossil creatures and corals can be seen in the rocks. Over most of the Bricklieves a thick layer of bog, up to 3 meters deep in places, has crept up to cover the limestone and gives the mountains a wild and rugged appearance. The bog began to grow about 1,500 BC, many years after the cairns were built, when the climate cooled by about 2 degrees and became much wetter. At the time Carrowkeel was in use, the area was naked limestone and very similar in appearance to another great stone age sanctuary, the Burren in Co. Clare. The monuments were used throughout all time periods - from the bronze age, when pottery was placed in some of the chambers - to the late medieval period, when Red Hugh O'Donnell used Doonaveeragh plateau as a camp for his army during the Nine Years War (1592 - 1601). There are many old empty cottages around Carrowkeel, some of which were inhabited until the 1960's. There is a fine example of a mountain cottage below Carrowkeel and across from Doonaveeragh, where good examples of potato 'lazy beds' can still be seen. |
The Bricklieve Mountains and Lough Arrow.
