Oldcastle, Co. Meath On his visit to the Loughcrew hills, also called Sliabh na Caillíghe (The Hill of the Witch) Jonathan Swift heard tales of...
Salisbury Plain, England No, Stonehenge is not in Ireland. But according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Merlin the magician moved Stonehenge from Ireland to England as a...
Rostellan, Co. Cork Nearly submerged by the tide, the Rostellan Dolmen is the only example of such a "Diarmuid and Gráinne's Bed" to wear a garland...
Tara has for generations served as the geographic focus for an aspirational sense of national glory, “the most consecrated spot in Ireland,” where blood was...
Malin More, Co. Donegal After Cloghanmore was dug out of the bog in the nineteenth century, it was "a ruinous pile," with its roofing-stones tossed aside...
Gleann Cholm Cille, Co. Donegal The Turas is a religious procession that visits 15 different stations in the hills and valleys of this stunningly beautiful spot...
Kells, Co. Meath The Teltown Fair was said to include Olympic-like competitions of strength and agility, even horse races and staged battles. There was also a...
Burren Forest Park, Co. Cavan Known as "The Druid’s Altar," for the legendary bloody sacrifices it was reputed to have witnessed, and as the "The Calf...
Ballynahatty, Co. Down Unique in the country for its central stone tomb, this monument is the largest enclosed ceremonial space in Ireland. The top of the...
Waterville, Co. Kerry This low monument south of Waterville is said to be the grave of Fial, a woman of the invading tribe who died from...
Ballyvourney, Co. Cork St. Gobnait's monastic site contains two holy wells and the reputed grave of this sixth-century holy woman within a ruined prehistoric tomb. It...
Moynalty, Co. Meath Ireland has remnants of more than 45,000 ringforts. There were once many more, now leveled and lost. That so many have survived is...
Killeavy, Co. Armagh The earliest oral traditions speak of the Dé Danann. Later poets re-worked these legends into ballads celebrating the conflicts with the Viking. Thus...
Portaferry, Co. Down Tara Fort sits on a prominent hilltop southeast of Portaferry, on Northern Ireland’s Ards Peninsula. Thomas McKeating claimed that "these fairies were supposed...
Ballina, Co. Mayo It is tantalizing for the modern visitor to imagine that within the folklore surrounding a particular prehistoric monument somehow, through the millennia, there...
Hollywood, Co. Wicklow The green Wicklow Hills setting provides a serene background for this sad tale of merriment gone wrong, the piper and his dancers suddenly...
Goleen, Co. Cork From its construction in the late Stone Age the Altar Wedge Tomb, with its dramatic waterfront location on Toormore Bay, was the site...
Inishmore, Co. Galway Dun Aengus is precariously perched on the edge of a vertical cliff, perhaps parts of it already fallen down into the churning waters...
Castlewellan, Co. Down When a man-made structure has been a distinctive part of the local landscape for perhaps 4,500 years, it has earned its iconic status....
Rathmore, Co. Kerry "When you stand in the middle of the Cathair you get great feeling of satisfaction that you're standing here on one of the...
Sneem, Co. Kerry The local peasantry called the building Staig an air, which was translated as "Windy House, or "The Staired Place of Slaughter." It was...
Waterville, Co. Kerry The Eighercua Stone Alignment looks west to Ballinskelligs Bay and the open ocean. The mound on which it sits was likely a ritual...
Bruff, Co. Limerick There is no other spot in Ireland so rich in the evidence of prehistoric habitation and ceremony, and also in the mythic traditions...
Tulla, Co. Clare Did the memory of a first-century warrior’s grave so impress itself upon the early Dalcassians that they enshrined its sanctity for the inauguration...
Slane, Co Meath In 1699 the proprietor of the townland of New Grange needed stones for building. He dug into the scrub-covered mound on his land...
Killaloe, Co. Clare Within a trench dug into the ringfort the archaeologists discovered evidence of a rectangular wooden building, paved with large slabs of stone...
Burren Forest Park, Co. Cavan Many of Ireland's megalithic monuments—portal tombs, court cairns, or wedge tombs such as this one—are known locally as "the giant's grave."...
Portnoo, Co. Donegal This dolmen is a monumental shape-shifter, suggesting visual allusions, or acting as a megalithic Rorschach Test. People have described it as resembling a...
Glandore, Co. Cork Drombeg presides over a view that gently swoops down to the Atlantic a mile distant. Its organically sculpted, honey-colored stones form a circle...