The Megalithomania Meet-Up 2010 : Rath Croghan
Saturday, 24th July 2010
The people from the megalithomania forums (plus a few others) met up to get to know each other and explore the amazing monuments that make up the Rath Croghan complex in County Roscommon. Not everyone could attend, but 10 of us braved the early rain and were rewarded with a fine day amongst good people and great monuments. I don't think any of us truly expected all the sites to be so good.
We met for an initial coffee and chat at the Cruachan Ai visitor centre in Tulsk and set off to Rath Croghan itself, the massive mound along side the road. While we were here it was raining, but we still enjoyed a walk and a chat. From there we moved on to Rath Mor, the inaugural mound and then to Rath Beg, a large roadside stepped barrow.
A short distance down the road we saw what must be Ireland's largest barrow - 85m in diameter - You could fit Newgrange into that! That's big! From there we went to Oweynagat, a site that is difficult to find, but worth the effort. This is a souterrain that leads into a cave, which is said to link to Kesh mountain in Sligo. A mythical boar is said to have erupted from here and created the earthworks in the surrounding fields with his tusks. Not all of us made it into the cave, but those that did really enjoyed themselves and got very, very muddy!
The next stop was to be Daithi's Stone, a standing stone set on top of a mound. We got close, but the presence of a very large bull in the field stopped us at the gate. Between Oweynagat and Daithi's Stone we came across a large enclosure with a souterrain inside it.
Although there is much more to see at Rath Croghan it was now getting late and we decided it was time to return to Crauchan Ai for more coffee and a chat before going our separate ways.
Many thanks to all those that attended for making the day so special. I think it's Sligo for the next one.
A Day At Some Carlow Castles And Other Sites
Sunday, 11th July 2010
I had recently seen a castle on this page on the internet: http://www.thestandingstone.ie/2010/01/ballymoon-castle-co-carlow.html - a great site run by TheStandingStone from the megalithomania.com forums. Wow! What a place ... and it's free to visit, too. There is also a comment on that page recommending Ballyloughlan Castle, so these were my targets for the day.
Before visiting the castles I went to Nurney, near Leighlinbridge, to see the two crosses there. For some reason I had got my bearings wrong when I entered the village and it took me ages to find the crosses.
Ballymoon castle is a strange one; a large, semi-ruined or unfinished, square court yard castle, not a towerhouse. Much of the nice stonework has gone, but there are still traces of the finery that this building once had. It's a great place for walk around and explore, with chambers in the walls and a fine view of Mount Leinster.
Ballyloughlan castle has a fine gatehouse, a fairly well-preserved corner tower and a ruined corner tower. These three buildings stand alone in the field: the walls that joined them up have been taken away, presumably to build the large ruined farm complex at the top of a nearby field.
As I was driving back I came across signposts to Rathnagerragh Castle. Following these brought me to a relatively disappointing ruin.
After all this 'modern' stuff I had to visit something a bit more megalithic. To free myself from the feelings of guilt that I was experiencing about enjoying visits to to the such modern structures I went to Castleruddery Lower stone circle. It's a bit over grown at this time of year and the sheep in the field seem to be staying out of the stones.
Inishmurray Here I come ... Oh Yes I Do!
Sunday, 20th June 2010
This is it. Finally I am going to get to Inishmurray. Conor Hill needed to take core samples for his research and a boat had been chartered. Thorsten & Tatjana invited me along to make up the numbers, and we were joined by Ruth, Maria, Jean and four tourists to bring the cost of the boat charter down.
The journey from Rosses Point to Inishmurray takes about 1 hour 40 minutes and we were blessed with calm waters. We didn't get any dolphins on the way, but we did see many seabirds, including 2 puffins. Along the journey Tatjana, who knows Sligo so well, pointed out lots of interesting sites and landscape features to us.
Landing at Inishmurray is interesting. There is no constructed quay, but the square-edged rocks do form a natural harbour on the south side of the island, just below the deserted village. We didn't have the island to ourselves for long, as several charter and private boats came along throughout the day.
Inishmurray is best known for its early Christian monastery, which is located inside a cashel. Inside there are churches, a beehive hut, cross slabs and leachts or altars. Many of the cross slabs from the island have been removed for safety and some replicas are being made to replace them in situ.
It's so hard to say what my favourite part of the visit was. The cross slabs that remain are beautiful. The semi-ruined sweathouse is cute. The cashel and its enclosed monuments are fantastic and must be the best part, although the island itself is simply a great place to be. I will definitely revisit here in a few years time, hopefully to see the replica cross slabs in place.
I have been trying to get out here for years and, for various reasons, have never managed to sort it out. I owe Thorsten and Tatjana a big favour! Thanks for inviting me.
Time To Visit Some Sligo Tombs
Saturday, 19th June 2010
Sligo has too much to offer. It amazes me that there is more stuff being discovered there all the time. The monuments I went to today are not new discoveries, although one of them is a surprising recent rediscovery, and the evening ended with what I believe is a new Summer Solstice observation.
The plan for the day was to visit some of the tombs I haven't yet visited and spend the evening at Carrowkeel watching the sun set through the lightbox in Cairn G. The weather was perfect for this for the first time in many years. I managed to get some good photos of the start of the event, but missed the final moments when it's at its most spectacular. I wondered off to give the many other people chance to enjoy it and got back to the tomb a few minutes too late to see it. After seeing a photograph taken by someone inside I was a bit miffed. Oh well. There'll be other years. I had actually gone off to visit Cairn M - one I'd not been to yet. While here I saw something that could be special.
During the day I visited five tombs - a portal tomb, three court tombs and a wedge tomb. One of the court tombs is very much a portal/court hybrid and if you removed several stones the remains would be interpreted as a portal tomb. The portal tomb I visited has been missing for a long time. What? Well, it was reported as destroyed and everyone assumed that it was gone completely. Even the recent Archaeological Survey missed it. Then Tatjana Kytmannow visited the site whilst preparing her PhD and was surprised to find the fallen remains of this once lovely portal tomb.
This was a good day out and the weekend was due to continue with a boat trip out to Inishmurray the day after ...
A Very Quick Trip To Inishmore - And About Time, Too
Sunday, 6th June 2010
How has it taken me so long to get out to one of the Aran Islands? I can't really answer that question, but what I can say is that, now that I have been there I'll be back sooner rather than later!
Uta and myself went away for the Bank Holiday weekend to Galway. We camped near Roundstone and went to Kylemore Abbey on the Saturday to see the wonderful Victorian walled garden and the house itself. The entrance fee was a bit expensive, but we had a good time (between the rain storms).
We took the 10:30am ferry to Inishmore from Rossaveal and returned on the 5:00pm ferry. We're not at all fit, so hiring bikes to tour the island on didn't seem such a clever idea. Instead we joined one of the minibus tours for 10 euro each. This took us to several places and gave us a tour of the island to get a feel for it for the next time we visit. Our driver was Rory, a nice bloke with a good knowledge of the island.
The next time I go to the islands I'll be staying for at least two days so that I can see all the stuff I didn't manage to see on such a short trip. The island might be small, but there's so much of interest there that you probably need a full week!
Inishmurray Here I Come ... Oh No I Don't
Saturday, 15th May 2010
I had been invited to join a boat trip to Inishmurray off the Sligo coast to see the wonderful early monastery there, so I drove up to Sligo and camped at Rosses Point on Friday night and waited to hear if the weather was going to be kind. Sadly, the weather looked too bad and the boat trip was cancelled. We're going to try again in a few weeks time.
Luckily my hosts, Thorsten and Tatjana, had back-up plans and we headed off for Streedagh and Dernish Island instead. Tatjana is studying the archaeology of these two areas (among others) and has made some great discoveries, which she kindly showed me. She hasn't published these findings yet, so I can't tell you about them ... much sadness! However, when they are published I'll be back there and tell you all about them. I can post information on two standing stones and a fine wedge tomb, though.
I was going to stay another night and go to see some more monuments in the area and then head to north Mayo to do some research for my next book, Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Mayo, but the weather turned bad and I decided to gather up my tent and head home.
Tatjana wrote her Phd dissertation about Portal Tombs, so I got to talk about prehistoric monuments all day and got loads of tips about ones to visit, so I'll be back soon with a good list of tombs to see.
A Beautiful Half-Day Around Monaghan
Saturday, 8th May 2010
What a scorcher! What a wonderful day of sunshine! A few weeks ago I went to Monaghan and didn't get to some of the sites on my list, but today I returned and saw those sites and a few more. There really are some interesting megalithic tombs in the county. The ones I saw today don't all fall into that category, though.
The best of the bunch was the court tomb at Tiredigan, which has lost much of its court, but stands in a mighty cairn. This was closely followed in the 'nice sites' race by the tiny tomb at Radeery. The state of the monuments I saw doesn't really matter, though. Getting out and about on such a day is prize enough.
The first site I stopped at was the churchyard at Donagh. This churchyard is beautifully maintained and a pleasure to walk around. The buildings are very ruined, but the wheel cross and cross bases there are very nice.
With all this sun around I couldn't just come straight home so I took a detour and went to Monasterboice on the way back. I love that place. In the sunlight it's simply sublime and I was lucky to have the place practically to myself for most of my stay there.
Another Midlands Trip
Sunday, 25th April 2010
After my last outing to Laois I decided that I'd go back. Well, I had actually planned to head for Roscommon, but I seem to have mislaid my OS map 33. It was a lovely day and I wasn't going to sit in the house again.
I didn't get to see much, but what I did see was really interesting. I managed to get to two cashels or stone forts, a very, very nice barrow and a ringfort. There are actually three cashels in Laois and I probably should have gone to all of them, but the third and best one will have to wait for another day.
The barrow is one of the finest I've seen to date. It has a huge ditch around it and the mound is over 3m high. It's only downside is the fact that it is covered and surrounded by trees, which hide it from view and block all of its views.
Another Midlands Barrow Cemetery
Sunday, 11th April 2010
A while ago I mentioned that I'd tried to look around the rest of the barrows at Great Heath in County Laois, but had not done so because they're dotted around a golf course and I don't fancy getting hit by a stray golf ball. After reviewing the maps and some aerial photographs of the area I saw that the all but one of the barrows are actually around the outside of the golf course and not actually on it.
One thing that the aerial photos showed was that many of the barrows appear to be in thick gorse cover, which makes finding them a bit awkward. Anyway, I thought I'd try anyway and I'm glad I did: only one of the barrows I went looking for was actually unreachable. The rest are all pretty much in the open, although many have their own gorse colonies. Several of the barrows have recently had the gorse bushes burnt off and a huge swathe of the Heath had also been cleared.
I managed to see two ringforts and seven barrows in just two hours. One of the ringforts is now used as a green on the Heath golf course and one of the barrows has been used as the 7th tee. There are still two barrows in the area that I have to see and I'll be back to do as soon as I can. The good thing is that, once I've add them to megalithomania.com, I'll have completed another of my goals for this year - 30 sites in Laois.
Another reason for wanting to go to this barrow cemetery was to test out how good barrows show up in 3-D pictures. They're notoriously difficult to convey in a photo unless the angle of the ligt is just right, but hopefully 3-D will help you see them better. I haven't looked at the pictures yet, so we'll have to wait and see!
A Day In The Burren - Enough Said?
Wednesday, 17th March 2010
Many of you will know Marianne through her posts in my guestbook and more recently her posts in the megalithomania.com forums. Today I had the pleasure of being treated to a tour of a lot of monuments and was able to share her enthusiasm and passion for The Burren. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this for me!
We started off revisiting an old favourite of mine - Templecronan (County Clare) - a beautiful early church tucked away in a small dell hidden from sight. We then went to the nearby well.
From there it was time for some tombs. Templecronan is not far from the tombs at Rannagh East & West. We went to what we thought was Rannagh East wedge tomb (actually it's in Termon townland), but decided to move on from there as Rannagh West could have taken a while to relocate in the thick hazel scrub.
The next group of sites was the incredible complex at Fanygalvan: two wedge tombs, a stone row, a cairn or two, hut circles and a chambered cairn with a tiny exposed cist. On the way up to this hilltop complex we found what may be a new boulder burial! From there we walked to a nearby cashel.
By now it was time for a late lunch. I'd already drank half of Marianne's coffee! We decided to head for Templeline, a lovely ruined church that would have been similar to Templecronan in its day: hidden away, but not quite so secretively.
Time for more tombs. Next was the diminutive wedge tomb at Coolnatullagh. Before we moved on to our final tombs we stopped at Tobar Fachtnan, one of the most unusual holy wells I've ever been to, which is surrounded by penitentiary cairns.
Now, how does this sound? It has been a very long day, so you decide to walk for over a mile across Burren limestone pavements? I don't know who's crazier, me or Marianne: she knew what was in store for her! However, I'm very grateful to her for doing so, because Eantymore wedge tomb is a sweet, yet quite ruined one. On the way we saw a souterrain. Unfortunately, I had left my GPS in her car, so I don't have exact coordinates for these.
We finished off at Poulaphuca (County Clare), a site I visited in 2002. Here we managed to find the nearby cist and spotted another small cairn a bit further away.
What an amazing day. I can't repeat enough what a pleasure it was! Thanks!
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