Knocknarea passage tombs

Located on the summit of Knocknarae Mountain, which is flanked to N by Sligo Bay and to SW by Ballysadare Bay. It is 85m N of the massive cairn/passage tomb (SL014-076003-), known as Maeve’s Cairn.

Indicated as ‘Carn’ on the OS 6-inch map.

A circular cairn (diam. 10-12m; H 1m) encloses a cruciform tomb built of orthostats or upright slabs. The tomb consists of a passage, with entrance at SE, which leads to a tripartite chamber. The chamber and the passage are greatly ruined and roofless; only nine orthostats of limestone and gneiss remain in situ. The limestone cairn is low, reaching only to the top of the orthostats; it has been suggested that it may never have covered the top of the chamber (Bergh 1995, 237). The cairn is encircled at a distance of c. 5m by a concentric bank (diam. 30m; Wth 4.5m; H 0.6m) of limestone. The tomb appears to have been one of several monuments on Knocknarae which were disturbed/’investigated’ in the early 1800’s by Richard Chamber Walker, a local landowner and antiquarian; Wood-Martin (1895, 660 ) recorded that burnt human and animal bones and small round unperforated beads [possibly stone] were found. (Bergh 1995, 87-8; 236-7, site 1). This is a National Monument (No. 153) in state ownership.