Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Knocknarea

Our next goal was the Carrowmore Tombs megalithic center, near Sligo, one of Ireland's three or four largest such centers.
You have to love a place where people have stone circles and
dolmen in their front yards...although the OPW staff later
assured us that this one was indeed a folly; you have to love
a place where people do follies like this...


















We got to Carrowmore too late to tour the site...although you can
probably see a dozen circles just from the parking lot

















And so found a place to park under Mt. Knocknarea, the car-park
for those hiking to the summit; as it turned out, we were there
a couple days, and then a couple more days, as my lung infection
got worse, and then better, after a visit to the doctor in Sligo;
just FWIW, cost of doctor visit, 45E, cost of strong antibiotic, 7E



















Knocknarea, from Carrowmore Tombs
















Surmounted by Queen Maeve's cairn and tomb; Queen Maeve
is one of those Irish mythical figures presumably dating from
the Bronze or even Iron ages; the cairn atop Knocknarea has
been dated to 3,500BC, way, way older...


















Knocknarea dominates the skyline from Sligo and figures in
half a dozen of Yeats' poems; we both had hoped to climb it--
only a thousand feet--when I got better, but as days passed, it
became clear my convalescence would take more time than we
had to spare; "next time"

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