Knocknarea: cairn of a warrior queen

    Oh, there isn't nearly enough time to see everything there is to see here.  We could spend a month and still not know all of Sligo's secrets.  So we were grateful again today to have my new little book about Sligo, written by a man who grew up here and both knows and loves the land.  Once again it pointed us in directions we would otherwise have missed.

    After a very large Irish breakfast at our B&B, we headed out to Knocknarea (Cnoc na Reidhe), pronounced knock-na-ray, and meaning hill of the smooth slope.  The hill itself would have been beautiful, but we were there with a purpose in mind- to climb to the top of the hill to the cairn of Queen Maeve (Queen Meadhbha).  Maeve was an Iron Age warrior queen.  She likely did exist- a daughter of the High King.   but she is now wrapped in myth.  Legends tell of her fierceness, courage, and pride.  One of the most famous tales explains that Maeve was proud of the fact that she was equal to her husband in all ways except one- her husband had a big, brown bull and she did not.  She set about to remedy the inequality by first trying to buy, and then successfully stealing, a neighbor's bull.  Equality restored.  But when the two bulls got together, they began to fight, and eventually killed each other.  Well, equality maintained!

    She was a protector of her people and much beloved of them.  The cairn on the top of the hill would have stood as a beacon.  They say she is buried with her favorite sword and shield, standing and facing the North, ready to fight her enemies for all eternity.  

    When we started up the hill, all we could see was cloud shrouding the vast majority of the hike.  We decided to start up anyway.  Consummate hikers, fear not, we weren't being stupid.  The hill is only around 1100 ft and largely devoid of trees.  So the worst that could have happened, slips on rocks aside, is that we could have gotten very wet.  Which we did, as far as that goes.

    And who could have resisted it?  Is there any better way to climb to the cairn of a great warrior queen, half lost to myth and legend, than through cloud and rain and wind?

    The climb started gentle enough- up a path surrounded by tall grasses, wild flowers, and rock walls on either side, beyond which were fields filled with cows and later sheep.

    But as we went further up, the landscape got a bit wilder and rockier. The cows disappeared and the nimble sheep took precedence.  

    We were also going deeper and deeper in the clouds, and our range of visibility got smaller and smaller until finally it seemed like we were in a cocoon.  We could have been anywhere or nowhere. We had no idea how close to, or far from, the top we were.  We thought we must be getting there, but how could we be sure?  We couldn't see anything.  It was pretty wild.

    Then, literally appearing out of the mist, we saw Queen Maeve's cairn.  It was so much bigger than we had expected.

    Legend has it that if you carry a stone up Knocknarea and place it on the cairn, your wish will be granted (and if you remove a stone from Maeve's cairn bad luck would follow you).  So we had all brought up a small stone.  When we got to the cairn, we took some quiet time to place the stones on the grave.

    During the walk down it started to rain in earnest.  Attentiveness to slippery rocks and the increasing comments from Kai and Tess about their wet feet made the trip slightly less romantic, but it was still beautiful.  And I noticed the path was strewn with fossils.  I would have collected one, but I was afraid of Maeve, so I didn't.  

    After a lunch of crackers and cheese purchased at a gas station and eaten in the car (guess who does their work for love and not money?), we headed over to Carrowmore, another neolithic graveyard.  While these mounds dated to around the same time as Newgrange, there was only one mound that looked similar.  Most of them were just a stone here or there, a few circles.....so little left of what was once clearly a hugely sacred site.  

    And the site is sprawling- many of the dolmens are in adjoining fields.  There are at least 60 separate graves/dolmens in the area, but they estimate there may have been over 200 originally.  And all of the surrounding hills have cairns on their tops as well.  It's hard to imagine the importance this site must have once had.  

One of the mounds is around 7400 years old, making it "earliest known piece of freestanding stone architecture in the world."  Though we somehow missed that while we were there.  Not the mound itself- I remember looking at it.  Just it's age.  

    To be honest, we weren't really into the power of the place.  We'd been to Creevykeel the day before and had just had the intense hike at Knocknarea.  Kai and Tess were cold and tired and wet, and Michael and I...well, I think just needed some downtime.  You can't exist in a constant state of awe.

Well, I can't.  Maybe you can.  I need to regroup after a while. Step into a little schlock.  Thank goodness then, for our next stop (again care of the little book) "Gilligan's World" aka the Fairy Park, nestled at the foot of Knocknashee (Cnoc na shidhe) pronounced knock na shee, and meaning "hill of the fairies. "  

    The fairy park was the cheesiest..... 

schlockiest place perhaps in all of Ireland.  But Kai and Tess absolutely loved it.  Poor kids, they are such troopers for the most part as we haul them from place to place.  They really do love a lot of what we do- and I love being able to share with them the old tales and stories of strong women (a queen powerful in her own right!).  But they deserve a treat, every once in a while.  And if they find magic at the fairy park, then I say Amen!

To close, here is a photo of Knocknashee- which actually does translate as "Fairy Hill".  Of course, it's cloaked in cloud.