This second edition of the Rathcroghan Guidebook contains updated and new imagery and text alongside entries on every aspect of Rathcroghan, from its archaeological and historical landscapes, through to its literary and mythological associations. This publication is the quintessential user’s guide to this fascinating archaeological landscape. Drawing upon historical, literary and cutting-edge archaeological research, Rathcroghan: The Guidebook is designed to bring the reader on a journey through time at Rathcroghan, from the first settlers to this broad limestone plain in the Neolithic period, through to the political mechanics of late medieval Machaire Connacht.
Thereafter, you will be taken on a journey of a different kind. You will see how our ancestors wove a tapestry of literature on top of this canvas of Rathcroghan, connecting physical landmarks and ancestor burials with the intoxicating narrative of Queen Medb of Connacht and the Ulster Cycle of Tales, filled with war and strife, jealousy and intrigue, gods and mere mortals.
This driving tour has been designed for the visitor to Rathcroghan to be able to experience a selection of the great number of monuments on the landscape here in your own time and at your own pace. This unique environment has been interacted with for over 6,000 years, beginning in the Neolithic, and continuing to be used in different forms up until the late medieval period at least.
The monuments here fall into a range of categories, from burial and funerary monuments, to settlement sites and field boundaries. Aside from these, monuments such as Rathcroghan Mound and the cave of Oweynagat give us an insight into the minds of the people who constructed and used these monuments.
Viewing this archaeological landscape in association with the huge corpus of medieval Irish literature that refers to Cruachan Aí and, in particular, the cast of characters that we encounter in the epic Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley) allows us to gain an understanding of the lives and beliefs of the Iron Age and early historic Irish.
The Uí Chellaig lords of Uí Maine and Tír Maine – An archaeological and landscape exploration of a later medieval inland Gaelic lordship.
Daniel Patrick Curley
The Ó Cellaig (O’Kelly) lordship of Uí Maine and Tír Maine was a substantial political territory and influential cultural power in later medieval Connacht. This book identifies and reconstructs the physical appearance of the major Ó Cellaig lordly centres from their emergence as one of the principal offshoots of the Uí Maine in c.1100, to the demise of the lordship around the year 1600. It begins with an historical background, which helps to identify the lordly centres (cenn áiteanna), and define the shifting physical boundaries of this territory through the period. The later medieval physical environment is then reconstructed, with an exploration of the resources and economic conditions which underpinned this inland Gaelic lordship. Thereafter, the focus moves to inspect these cenn áiteanna, their siting, forms and surrounding cultural landscapes. In doing so, the writer investigates a broad range of settlement forms, including the continued use of crannóga and promontory forts, before turning to the tower house castle. This book tackles important themes in later medieval Gaelic society and its physical expression, through the lens of these eastern Connacht lords.
Daniel Patrick Curley is a graduate of the NUIG, with a PhD in Archaeology. He manages the Rathcroghan Visitor Centre in Co. Roscommon, and his research interests lie primarily in the archaeology and cultural heritage of Roscommon and east Galway.
Co. Roscommon Historical and Archaeological Society Journal, Vol 15 (2024)
The Co. Roscommon Historical and Archaeological Society Journal is a fascinating collection of articles devoted to the study of Roscommon’s past, both modern and ancient.
With topics ranging from archaeology to history, folklore to heritage, there is something for everybody.
Volume 15 (2024) is a bumper edition at nearly 200 pages and containing 36 articles with an extensive colour section.
Produced by Rathcroghan Visitor Centre in collaboration with Prints of Ireland, this unique bespoke print (30 x 42cm), depicts Roscommon through a range of historical and cultural landmarks situated throughout the county.
The map includes representations of – the Arigna Mines, Lough Key, Boyle Abbey, Elphin Windmill, Dr. Douglas Hyde, a Gallowglass Warrior, Rathcroghan Royal Site, Strokestown Park House, the Coggalbeg Hoard, Clonalis House, Ballintober Castle, Roscommon Castle, the Castlestrange Stone, the Claypipe Centre – Knockcroghery, Rindoon Castle, Ballyforan Bridge, Meehambee Portal Tomb, the Knock Gold Torcs and Shannonbridge, Co. Roscommon.
(Please note that all prints are supplied unframed)
Produced by Rathcroghan Visitor Centre in collaboration with Prints of Ireland, this unique bespoke print (30 x 42cm), depicts the Cave of Oweynagat – Uaimh na gCat, Ireland’s Otherworldly entrance in Rathcroghan, Co. Roscommon.
(Please note that all prints are supplied unframed)
Produced by Rathcroghan Visitor Centre in collaboration with Prints of Ireland, this unique bespoke print (30 x 42cm), depicts the Royal Site of Rathcroghan through representations of Rathcroghan Mound, King Dathí’s Stone and the mythical Battle of the Bulls, Finnbennach and Donn Cuailnge at Rathnadarve – Ráth na dTarbh.
Archaeologists frequently come across puzzling evidence for ritual activity and Pagan Ireland looks at some of these discoveries. This is a survey of the many rituals and beliefs that were vitally important elements of life in ancient Ireland over several thousand years from at least 4000 BC. Driven by a very human desire to make sense of the world and transform their lives, people created sacred spaces and monuments to facilitate communication with the gods and with ancestral figures. A multiplicity of sacred phenomena were a part of everyday experience, with landscapes and objects often holding unworldly meaning.
Written for a general readership, this wide-ranging study draws on archaeological evidence and on what is known about ritual practices in other cultures to address the difficult question of what beliefs might lie behind certain ritual activities. Sometimes it is possible to make a plausible guess as to what these may have been. A circle of stones was more than just a way of marking a sacred space, the round plan was an expression of a belief in a circular, cyclical cosmos as witnessed in the path of the sun and the fixed stars, and in the rhythm of the year.
Sun worship is recorded throughout prehistory and is apparent not just at famous sites like Newgrange but in imagery in gold and bronze at a later date. The great disc of the sun travelled across the daytime sky and at night was believed to descend beneath the earth in the west, traversing a mysterious underworld, to rise again in the east.
Funerary ceremonies, solar symbolism, magical metalworking, an enduring belief in the cosmic circle, fertility rites, idol worship and much more were all a part of a great pagan tapestry. Veneration of the old gods survived well into Christian times.
John Waddell, formerly Professor of Archaeology in the University of Galway, has written extensively on Irish archaeology. His work on Rathcroghan, a place like Tara that is rich in myth and legend, inspired his interest in Celtic mythology and publications like Archaeology and Celtic Myth (2014).
Bespoke, exclusive design, based on and inspired by the Battle of the Bulls, Finnbennach, the white horned bull of Connacht and Donn Cuailnge, the Brown Bull of Cooley, which took place at Rathnadarve (Ráth na dTarbh – the Fort of the Bulls) in Rathcroghan at the conclusion of our national epic tale, An Táin Bó Cuailnge.
Blank Greeting Card and envelope, produced for Rathcroghan Visitor Centre by artist Martin Wilson (Hatch Burn Carve).
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Our Museum Rooms & Café will be closed to the public on Sat 16th November.
Due to a Health & Safety review, we are not currently bringing visitors into the cave during our site tours until further notice.
