Carrowkeel

Carrowkeel is a cemetery of around fourteen passage tombs strung along the Bricklieve Mountains, built roughly 3400 to 3000 BC and so contemporary with the Boyne Valley, though far less visited. The cairns sit on limestone ridges with views over Lough Arrow and, on clear days, a large stretch of the north-west. Cairn G is the one most people enter: a cruciform chamber with a corbelled roof reached by a low crawl, and above its entrance a roof-box similar to the one at Newgrange, which admits light around the midsummer sunset rather than the winter solstice sunrise. Excavation in 1911 was crude by modern standards and removed a great deal. On the slope below is Mullaghfarna, a group of over a hundred hut circles cut into the limestone, one of the largest such settlements known in Ireland. Access is up a rough track and then across open hillside with no path.

What you actually see

• The cairns - fourteen passage tombs along the limestone ridges.
• Cairn G - enterable by a low crawl, with a roof-box above the entrance.
• Mullaghfarna - over a hundred hut circles on the slope below.
• The view - Lough Arrow and much of the north-west on a clear day.

When to go

May to September for the ground and the light. Midsummer is when Cairn G's roof-box alignment works. The track and hillside are wet and rough in any season.

Honest expectations

Unstaffed with no interpretation, no facilities and no marked path on the hill. The access track is rough - not all cars will manage the upper section. Entering Cairn G means a low, tight, dirty crawl. Wet, uneven limestone throughout.

Nearby

Lough Arrow is below; Carrowmore and Knocknarea are north near Sligo.