carrowmore megalithic cemetery

Distributed over many acres and extending into adjoining townlands, Carrowmore represents the largest grouping of megalithic monuments in Ireland, and immense Neolithic burial ground where once there may have been more than a hundred tombs. Casual exploration in the last century and present day gravel quarrying in the vicinity have devalued the archaeological potential of the site; but it is still a rewarding place to visit, steeped in atmosphere and evoking a sense of the past.
The surviving monuments, some much more despoiled than others, comprise truncated passage tombs whose megalithic character derives from the huge ice-transported erratics used in the construction of the chambers.
The equally massive kerbs of vanished cairns are sometimes mistaken for ritual stone circles, which they resemble. A number of the tombs here have lately been the subject of controversial dating by a team of Swedish archaeologists, whose findings suggest that they may have been built before 400 BC.
To the north-west of the Carrowmore group rises the prominent hump of Knocknarea (1,014 feet), a cairn-crowned hill traditionally held to be the burial place of Queen Maeve of Connacht.