Donegal and more!

Benbulben

Rainbow over Sligo

Meelick Round Tower

Megalithic Tomb, Carrowmore, Sligo

Tombstone, W. B. Yeats

Rainbow, Queen Maeves Tomb, Knocknarea, overlooking Sligo

Slieve League

Benwiskin mountain in Sligo region

Ancient High Cross, Drumcliff, mentioned in Yeats poem:

'' Under bare Ben Bulben's head


In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.

An ancestor was rector there

Long years ago, a church stands near,

By the road an ancient cross.''



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Queen Maeves Cairn Tomb, Knocknarea,

Celtic Cross, Cong Abbey

Sunset, Bundoren

Donegal Castle

Donegal

Church with small round tower,Killybegs

Commercial fishing boat, Killybegs

Traditional weavers, Kilcar

Coastal drive, near Kilcar, west of Donegal

Teelin

Fort, near Slieve League

Slieve League, two thousand foot cliffs, obscured by clouds

Benwisken mountain near Sligo

Ben Bulbin

Round Tower, Drumcliffe

High Cross, Drumcliffe (referenced by Yeats)

Church, Drumcliffe

W.B. Yeats grave next to church, Drumcliffe

Megalithic Tomb, Carrowmore

Tomb on ''private property!''

Listoghil Tomb (labeled #51)

Discussion of Listoghil, #51

Boulder Circle



View from Carrowmore of Knocknarea with Queen Maeve's massive Cairn Tomb barely visible on top



Listoghil

Listoghil, excavated entrance

Listoghel, passage tomb in center of excavation

View from Listoghil, 2 tombs in distance

Trail up Knocknarea to Queen Maive's tomb

View during Knocknarea ascent

Approaching Queen Maive's cairn tomb

Oueen Maive's Tomb

Ben Bulbin, from Knocknarea

Meelick Round Tower, between Castlebar and Sligo

Celtic inscriptions, base of Meelick Round Tower

Church ruins, outside Cong

Cong Abbey

Graves, Cong Abbey

I will arise and go now, and go to Inishfree.
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee loud glade.  

W.B. Yeats


I took a jaunt north, to Sligo, Leitrim and southern Donegal counties.  I drove a route via Cong, and Sligo. The first thing I noticed near Sligo, was a mountain with a massive tomb on top of it, seen from many miles away. More about that later. Then, I drove along part of the coast, near Bundoran. There are nice beaches, and I watched the sunset. It was a red skyline, but the proverb was wrong. I arrived in Donegal and overnighted at the Abby hotel, in a budget forty euro room. The economy is definitely down.
The next day, I took a few photos of the Donegal Castle, and headed west, along the coast, destination Slieve League. This was a spectacular drive, the further west I went. I stopped in Killybegs, where the big commercial fishing boats were docked. There was a side road along the coast that I took on a whim, and was glad that I did. It was one of those areas so beautiful, peaceful and idyllic that you have one of those I want to live here moments. I would probably think differently in December, when the raging Atlantic blows. Incidentally, I saw a lot of damaged plants and trees, from the horrific salt spray that occurred last winter. There are articles on this, saying that plants even 1 km inland were affected. As I write this, I look at trees outside my clinic window, that have fifty percent of their leaves brown, in June. Next,  I drove thru the town of  Kilcar, where I saw traditional craftsmen using hand looms (at Studio Donegal). I am ordering a wool hat for my noggin.
Then, I headed up an ascending, winding, cliff edged road, described as white knuckle driving, which wasn't really that bad. I arrived at Slieve League, which I intended to traverse. These are the highest cliffs in Europe, at two thousand feet, and amazingly, are not well known, even in Ireland! The problem with my plan was that it was blowing twenty mph, and raining sideways, and the cliff tops were literally hidden in the clouds! There is a great four hour hike, which ''is not for the timid or inexperienced'' (there is a section called the one man trail, which is wide enough for 1 person, with drop offs two thousand feet to the sea) which I wanted to do, but not in those inclamite conditions. I plan on returning for this experience. Note, for people interested in doing the Slieve League hike, there is a great topo map showing the trail, that you can google, and when driving, you need to go to Teelin, and take the 2nd turn (the first is more of an inland Slieve League hike), and both turns are labeled with Slieve League signs.

So, I returned along the same drive, heading for Sligo. Just north of town, I went off on a wild goose chase, looking for some tombs, which I never found. When I mentioned this to an employee at another tomb site, she had me sign a petition for better signs, as I was the 2nd person that day complaining of not finding those tombs. Frustrating, because this tomb lites up on the Summer Solstice, which was today. I got pretty close to what I believe is a mountain called Benwiskin in the Dartry mountains, with its peculiar shape. Most of these mountains are of limestone and shale.
I pulled over to photograph a roadside round tower,the road actually cuts across what was the original site of St Columba’s monastery, founded in 575. Only a remnant of the round tower  and to my surprise, the adjacent cemetery was where W. B. Yeats was buried.A decade after his death the great bard of Ireland William Butler Yeats body was finally laid to rest in this ancient churchyard. The mystical mists enshrouding Ben Bulben (a nearby strangly shaped visually stunning mountain, see photos) seems most appropriate; the brooding mountain appears to stand as a silent beautiful sentinel over his simple resting place. Yeats wish was to be buried in this churchyard, indeed he wrote his own epitaph it can be found in his poem “Under Ben Bulben” to quote partially it reads.“Under bare Ben Bulben’s head in Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid”, the poem ends with the famous lines “cast a cold eye on death horseman pass me by.” I bought a print of one of his poems there, titled  ''The Lake Isle of Inisfree  ''.  The poem describes going to an island loving it, then returning home to reality, and thinking about the island.
Then, I went to Carrowmore, An Cheathrú Mhór, meaning Great Quarter which is one of the major passage tomb cemeteries in Ireland. There are thirty tombs, spread around the land, with in the Sligo city limits. From Wiki: The tombs (in their original state) were almost universally 'dolmen circles'; small dolmens each enclosed by a boulder ring of 12 to 15 meters. Each monument had a small levelling platform of earth and stone. One of the secrets of the dolmens longevity was the well executed stone packing set around the base of the upright stones. The combination of 5 of these orthostats and a capstone enclosed a pentagonal burial chamber. The capstone can weigh tons. The boulder circles contain 30 - 40 boulders, usually of gneiss, the material of choice for the satellite tombs. Sometimes an inner boulder circle is present. Entrance stones, or passage stones, crude double rows of standing stones, emphasise the direction of the small monuments; they generally face towards the area of the central tomb. The 'satellite tombs' or dolmens are distributed in a roughly oval shape about 1 km x .6 km, with the largest monument at the highest point at the centre, a cairn (now restored) called Listoghil. This cairn is perhaps twenty feet high. Note I previously mentioned another tomb on a nearby mountain, this is gigantic, it is called Queen Maeve's cairn. More on this later.
Many of the Carrowmore tombs have been excavated, then restored. These neolithic tombs are thought to be over six thousand years old.  Imagine hunter gatherers. There has long been debate about how the different tomb types - 'passage tombs', 'court tombs', 'portal dolmens,' and 'wedge tombs' - all of which occur in County Sligo - should be interpreted. Are they indicative of different 'cultures,' or peoples? Of different functions for a single community? Almost all the burials at Carrowmore were cremations with inhumation  being only found at Listoghil. It is apparent that the dead underwent a complex sequence of treatments, including excarnation and reburial. Grave goods include antler pins with mushroom-shaped heads and stone or clay balls, a fairly typical assemblage of the Irish element of the passage tomb tradition. Some of the tombs and pits nearby contained shells from shellfish. Listoghil is the largest site, a cairn dominating the local landscape. It has been excavated, centrally is a wedge tomb.

Also, I found a nearby wedge tomb on private property which I photographed, I had read on the net that it was ok to do so. Later, the Carrowmore employee told me the tombs on private property were no trespassing, maybe a liability issue? Again, no signs (except ''beware of ram'')...

Imagine that the Ice Age ended 10,000 years ago. It left behind such stunning mountains as Benbulbin and Benwiskin (see photos). Then the hunter gatherers lived around these mountains, and made these tombs, which still stand. It shows how time has imprinted on this area, and it shows visually how this area is connected with the past. It also shows me how we are connected with the people that called this area their home, during the stone age, thousands of years ago. Then people settled here by the sea.

 I had enough time to ascend a prominent mountain, Knocknarea, one thousand vertical feet, to Queen Meabh's tomb This is a very large cairn, which has never been excavated. The size (thirty feet high) of the cairn is probably exacerbated because the folklore  mentions that its bad luck to remove a stone from the Cairn but good luck to take a stone up the hill and place it on the Cairn. Queen Meabh is the queen of Connacht (Connacht is one of the four geographic areas of Ireland) in the Irish mythology. Supposedly, she is buried upright facing her enemies in Ulster.

I was rewarded for my climb with great vistas and a rainbow. The clouds were constantly changing, intermittently enshrouding Benbulbin. I met a nice kid there, who had just graduated in engineering. He was not to worried about getting a job, as there is still some demand for his profession. That was the first time that I have heard someone here not be too concerned about being unemployed. The unemployment rate around rural Carna must be well over 50%.

I came off the mountain around 7:30, and headed south. I stopped to see the Meelick Round Tower, between Sligo and Cong, and the Cong Abbey, on the way back to good ole Carna. Founded in the early 7^th century, by Saint Feichin, the abbey was destroyed by fire in the early 12^th century. Turlough Mor O’Connor, the High King of Ireland, refounded the abbey circa 1135. His son Rory O'Connor, the last High King of Ireland before the Norman invasion, constructed new buildings and also lived the last 15 years of his life at the abbey, dying in 1198. This was also where the community gathered to confess their sins publicly. The restoration of the abbey was started by Benjamin Guinness soon after he had bought nearby Ashford Castle in 1855.

This was a great trip. About 420 miles.