I have seen so much rock art lately that you're probably getting a bit tired of seeing nothing else, so today was a trip to break the recent trend. Today I was off to see passage tombs! Not any old passage tombs and not your usual suspects, either. Today was about Antrim and its small group of coastal, passage-less passage tombs plus the amazing hilltop passage tomb-proper at Carnanmore.
I had meant to see a lot more on my way up through Antrim, but it was very foggy for the best part of the morning, forcing me to drive on by many interesting looking sites. Luckily, by the time I reached a bit further north the mist and fog had all cleared and I was able to make my ascent up a rough, boggy hillside to Carnanmore.
The site before Carnanmore was a real surprise. I was expecting a court tomb, but instead found a southerly outlier to the northern coastal passage tomb group. And what views, too! That comment applies from most of the sites I went to today - I could see clearly across to Scotland at one point!
Once again the people of Antrim made me feel very welcome. Lovely chats and kind permission to visit the sites is always a feature of a trip to Antrim.
For some weeks/months now myself and Ken Williams have been trying to pick the right day to hunt down a lovely rock art panel in Crannagh townland, County Carlow. It's a 1.9km walk from the road to the stone, which is situated on a rocky slope making finding it quite daunting. While I was waiting for Ken to arrive a local farmer told me the best route up the hill, but knew nothing of the stone. Then, shortly after Ken arrived, a local man (named Mike I think - my memory's terrible so forgive me if I'm wrong) stopped to chat. He'd tried finding the stone himself before, but hadn't managed it. I gave him the GPS coordinates I had, which are pretty accurate - they turned out to be just 14m out.
The walk up the valley alongside Mountain River is a relatively easy one. All the time the top of Mount Leinster beckons you onward - well, today just the radio mast was poking through some low cloud, but the effect is almost the same. The stone is a beauty. After spending quite some time photographing the panel and saying that there must be some more in the area I wandered off to look at a few stones. I was attracted to the largest rock on the hillside and guess what ... it is decorated! It is not as nice as the first panel, nor as well-preserved, but it's there and I discovered it! My first rock art discovery! What's more, the first Crannagh panel was thought to be the highest in Leinster, but not any more. This new panel is about 10m higher.
After returning to our cars we called in at a farm in Knocksquire to see if we could see another panel that was found nearby and moved to the farmyard. It now resides in Carlow museum according to the farmer.
I then headed home via the lovely wall-embedded rock art panel at Ballinkillin to get a good GPS reading and some better photos.
Today I went to Wexford on another bullaun hunt. Despite being very wet I saw some lovely things. I found five bullaun stones, one of which is at the very nice ruined Romanesque church at Clone. Not a great deal of its decoration is left, but the door pillars and several carved heads are still there, as is a little cross and a sundial.
Normally, finding five bullauns would be enough excitement for me (I'm obviously easy to please!), but Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Waterford is now available in the shops and directly from the megalithomania shop. To celebrate the release of my second title I have reduce the shipping costs on my books. Now there is free delivery within Ireland and its just 1 Euro for the rest of the world! Every copy of both books sold from now on will also be signed.
So, come on - there's probably still time to order either book and get it in time for Christmas!
Once again the weather forecast dictated where I headed for, today. The west was not looking good, so Carlow seemed like a good idea. I abandoned the plans for my Clare trip and headed south with a list of bullaun stones and some more rock art panels to see.
I managed a handful of sites when I had news that my youngest daughter's snake, Raspberry, was not well, so I turned around and headed home to take it to the vets. Sadly, the poor little thing died before I got back. This prompted a trip into town to get a replacement to ease the sorrow. R.I.P Raspberry!
The sites I did get to were rather varied in quality. A massive bullaun and the beautiful rock art panel at Knockbrack were preceded by a small, broken bullaun.
I keep being drawn back to Derrynablaha in County Kerry. There's something special about a valley with nearly 40 rock art panels dotted around it (although some of these are actually in the neighbouring townland.) After locating grid references for many of the panels myself and Ken Williams decided to head down there again and see what we could find. Although we both saw to panels that one of us hadn't been to before there was only one panel that was new to both of us. Ken took me to a couple of panels that he'd found previously and we went back to a couple that I have found before.
We didn't manage to get across the valley into the next townland, because the river was too swollen to cross and it was getting too late to drive around to the other side. Another trip to see these is definitely on the cards though, but perhaps this should be left until the Spring when the days are long enough to fit more in.
Some of the stones we failed to find may actually be there still. I had a little mishap loading my GPS from my PC and I think some of the coordinates got messed up. This has prompted me to order a new GPS with some extra features and some proper software to load it up with.
Despite getting very, very wet in the frequent rain storms it was a good day. I got to try out some of the things I have learned about my flash setup, but I still haven't got it sussed properly: for a start I need to learn to be more patient and allow the flashes to recharge properly between shots!
I started the day with a list of Wicklow bullauns and rock art panels. The trek to the first site took me into the valley to the northeast of Lough Dan, along a popular walk to the Lough. What a beautiful place! I could certainly live there. The walk back to the top of the valley was eased greatly when I stopped to watch two herds of deer, each accompanied by an antlered stag grazing in the valley below. It's too late in the year for the rutt, but I'll be back here next autumn to see if I can witness the spectacle. I also spotted what I think are the remains an unrecorded kerbed cairn in the valley bottom.
From there I headed to the other side of Lough Dan to track down two panels and a bullaun stone. I only managed to find one of the panels. I didn't find the bullaun, because I entered the wrong grid ref into my GPS. Silly!
Then it was south to Drummin townland to look for some other rock art panels and bullauns. Again I managed to find one cup-marked stone.
After that I met up with Ken Williams to visit Drummin (County Wicklow) to take some side-lit shots to try and hilight the very worn markings. The motifs have faded even more since my last visit, but the side flash worked - as always it worked better for Ken than it did for me!
I left Ken taking pictures of that stone (complete with posing cat) and wandered into the next field, where I located a cup-marked stone that actually proved to be a proper rock art panel, because two of the cups have a single ring around them.
Despite not finding everything, it was a great day. I really do love that part of the country and feel lucky that it's so close to home.
I had planned to go to Clare today. However, when I woke up I didn't feel like getting up, so I didn't. When I eventually did so I decided to join Ken again in Carlow. I arrived about lunch time and started asking around for information about one rock art panel, but even the oldest farmer in the townland couldn't help me. I then tried to ring Ken to see where he was, but was somewhat hindered due to the fact that I'd left my mobile phone at home!
I then went to Spa Hill to see Peter Rose, who is the gardian of a very beautiful carved stone. I managed to take some better pictures of this and he showed me 3 other panels on his land. These are not in the same league as the 'proper' Spa Hill stone, but they are tempting pointers to the volume of rock art in the area. Peter is always on the look out for new panels, so don't think it will be too long before more come to light. As I couldn't contact Ken I decided to head home. When I rang to tell him why I hadn't been in contact he told me that he'd been to see one panel that is supposed to be in the National Museum, but is still in situ. I hope to go and see it next Saturday.
A recent talk by Chris Corlett unleashed the presence of a lot of rock art in Carlow and Wicklow. Sadly, the exact locations of the many new stones was not given, so the hunt begins!
These short days don't really help, especially when you don't start out until after lunch. This severely limited the amount of tracking down that could be done. Thinking that I might not find any of the new stone I first went to Rathgeran Lower (County Carlow). I am so happy that I did, because the lighting was absolutely perfect!
One of the stones on the list is also in Rathgeran townland, but it's a big townland. All that was known is that it is in a field wall. I spent a good hour looking around the walls close to the above stone without luck. Eventually, after much door knocking, I found out which farm it is on. Then I managed to find the farm and the farmer was very, very helpful. I took some good pictures using the Ken Willaims side-flash method and then the batteries in both my flashes ran out. Great planning! Soon afterwards, Ken himself turned up and took some even better ones.
While Ken was taking his shots the farmer drove me to a nearby field to show me another stone he'd uncovered a few months ago. This is unlike the other rock art in the area and is a valuable addition to the stuff found within sight of Mount Leinster.
The day started out with a list of bullaun stones in Donegal and the intention of visiting them and then heading for Inishowen and seeing some rock art. The bullaun-stone-visiting part of the day didn't go exactly to plan. In fact, the only bullaun stone I saw wasn't actually on the list!
I started off with one of the few portal tombs I haven't visited yet and then headed north for Inishowen. After finding some very worn rock art and some not-so-very worn rock art, I got into conversation with a man, Desi McCillion, on the shores of Lough Fada. It turns out that he was a local history buff, so the conversation carried on for some time. He didn't know of the one stone I had located, so I showed him where that is and he told me of some nice sites, including a Christianised bullaun stone. This went straight on my list. Sadly, he also informed me that one of the people I was trying to track down, Conell Byrne, had passed away this year. Now, I never knew him, but everywhere I went in the eare looking for information his name drew instant recognition. He was a very well respected man in these parts. He had a wealth of local history knowledge, but sadly much of that is lost, because it was mainly kept in his head. Although not well-known outside of Inishowen, I feel I must mention his passing and what a loss it is to us all.
Anyway, after my conversation with Desi I set off to see a few sites from my original list and a few sites that he had told me about. I finally arrived on Doagh Isle in the pouring rain. It was lashing down. In a break in the weather I headed into the fields with some GPS coords provided by Ken Williams. The panels were still on display and they are still beautiful! There is masses of rock art on Doagh Isle and a lot of it is unique to the area. I then found two other panels nearby, but these are very worn. Then the rain started up again and I got soaked desperately trying to find one beautiful panel that I had an illustration of, but all I got is wet ... very wet!
All-in-all it was a good day. Some tombs, a stone circle, some high crosses, a bullaun stone and several rock art panels. Unfortunately, the weather was so bad and the light so weird that not many of the photos of the worn rock art panels turned out. I will post them and I'll mark where the motifs are, but with some of them you'll just have to take my word for it ... or, even better, go out and see them for yourself.
The plan was to visit all the standing stones marked in north Wexford. The result was visiting the sites of a lot of standing stones in north Wexford. So many of them have disappeared. All I found was one rather sadly fallen roadside stone. Feeling somewhat deflated by this I headed southeast to look for a bullaun stone. I found that, but it isn't exactly going to set the megalithic world on fire.
On a much better note, the proofing of Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Waterford is completed and it will soon be going to the printers. We are anticipating a late November release.
It's been a long time since I added any hi-res images to megalithomania, so I think I will endevour to do some over the coming weeks. I will also replace some of the terrible ones that I do have available! Unfortunately I don't have an easy mechanism in place to do upload these at the moment (which is why I haven't added any for a long time) so I will probably code that first (which is why it will happen over the coming weeks.)
