Carrowmore Tombs

As I began to feel better, we drove over to the Carrowmore Tombs. Very briefly, the megalithic center seems to have been devoted strictly to burials--usually burials of ashes--in dolmens, often within stone circles. The main activity among the 30-40 monuments has been dated between 4,000 BC and 3,000 BC, making it significantly older than the larger and more complex center to the east, the Bru na Boinne, Newgrange and Knowth (we'll get there), and others. Some few sites at Carrowmore have been C14 dated to 5,500 BC, which would make them about as old as anything we have seen from the neolithic. The largest of the Carrowmore Tombs is C51, a cairned passage tomb, now open, but almost like a little Newgrange. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

C51, from a distance

Vicki with Knocknarea behind her in the distance

And me

C51 again

Entry to C51

C51 interior

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"

Duking It Out In Cong

We went to Cong, in County Mayo, to see the ruined monastery, which was just so-so. But Cong is where a great John Ford movie, The Quiet Man, was filmed, in 1951...John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara (for whom Technicolor was invented), Barry Fitzgerald, Victor MacLagen, and a cast of scores of Irish actors and actresses. The prosperous little town, better known these days as a capital of fly fishing and a 5-star resort, is studded with statues and artifacts from the movie. The campground we stayed at runs the film on a large screen every night, and having never seen it before, we decided to give it a try. Ford won his 4th Best Director Academy Award for The Quiet Man, still a record, and the movie also won the Oscar for best cinematography, a luscious color depiction of rural Ireland, filmed under the most trying conditions...just 6 days of intermittent sunshine in 6 weeks of filming! (We can relate). Music by Victor Young, who wove many traditional Irish tunes into the score. I've read that Maureen O'Hara, who died in 2015, spent her last hours listening to the soundtrack. It's a loving portrait of Ireland by the Irishman Ford, a romantic comedy, with one of the longest and most memorable fight scenes--part comedy--in all cinema. It's a charmer, despite its datedness. So, we're glad we got to Cong.

Still on the great road...

Part of the abbey ruins

A bit Romanesque

A bit Gothic

The grounds were more interesting than the ruins, and included a variety of enticing
trails we might have tried had I felt better

We especially liked the monks' fishing cabin

Said to have been linked to the abbey kitchen by a string and bell to alert the
cooks of a catch

But the real charmer is the movie

Recognizable bits of the movie are all around

Scene of much of the action (of course)

Reask Monastery

Just a few miles the other side of Gallarus Oratory are the ruins of the 6th-7th century Reask Monastery. For ruins, I'd say they are quite tidied-up. Most of the buildings would have been corbaled, beehives, and they are gone, but their foundations and lower walls remain, as well as the sort-of roundish enclosure and stone fence that divided the sacred bits from the profane bits (where the monks lived, ate, and worked.) The Reask Stone has beautiful spiral designs. I think I'll just let the pix speak for themselves.

Sacred, left; profane, right; wait, no...

Pano