Directions to the Trailhead

Take the N4 from Sligo towards Dublin for 26.5km. At the end of the dual carriageway, take the last exit from the roundabout for Castlebaldwin. When you enter the village, turn left at McDermott’s Pub. After 300 metres the road forks, take the left turn here. Continue for approx. 4km before taking a road to the left. Follow this until you reach a gate that crosses the road, where a small amount of roadside parking is available. You can pass through this gate (remembering to close it behind you) and further roadside parking is available further on as the road ends.

Megalithic Carrowkeel
Carrowkeel is a megalithic hill top passage tomb cemetery. There are 14 cairns located at different positions on the hilltops with a further group of 6 cairns extending west towards Keshcorran Mountain, which is also capped with a large cairn. The main group of cairns was examined in 1911 when 14 cairns were excavated were given letters to differentiate them with Cairns G and K been the most significant of all.
The tombs were opened by R.A.S. Macalister, accompanied by Robert Lloyd Praeger and Edmund Clarence Richard Armstrong. Although Macalister was acquainted with contemporary archaeological methods, he acted hastily at Carrowkeel and his removal and disturbance of the chamber floors have hampered investigators who followed him. In ‘The Way That I Went’, 1937, Praeger gives an eerie account of the first entry into one of the Carrowkeel monuments.

Nowadays, the passage tombs are protected by law and walkers are asked never to interfere with them.

The Route
The walk up to Carrowkeel can be done as a linear walk or as part of the Miners Way and Historical Trail. To assess the tombs as part of the Miners Way and Historical Trail you can start from Ballinafad and walk up across the Bricklieve Mountains over to the tombs before heading down past the donkey sanctuary to Castlebaldwin. The Miners Way and Historical Trail is waymarked using black marker posts with yellow arrows.

Did you know?
The mountain range containing Carrowkeel is called the Bricklieve Mountains, meaning the speckled mountains in Irish.