Last Tuesday my Australian cousin and myself climbed Knocknashee Hill between Tubbercurry and Coolaney, Co Sligo. {It's the hill in the masthead (bloghead?) above.} Our parents were born close by and had climbed the hill in their youth so this was an essential part of a Sligo visit. The rain and the wind only added a necessary touch of hardship to the occasion.The summit of the hill has a fairly recently identified hill fort with hut circles and habitation sites. There are two stone cairns on top one of which has an open chamber. No excavations have yet been carried out on the hill.
In spite of the rain there was an impressive view from the top. To the north are the Ox Mountains and the peak closest to Coolaney, Doomore, has a cairn on the top. Over the Ox Mountains we could just make out Knocknarea with its cairn. To the south east is the hill of Keash with its cairn.
In between there are smaller hills some of which have mounds or cairns. None of these mounds have been excavated, they may contain tombs, passage graves possibly. There are a number of Wedge Graves especially along the slopes of the Ox Mountains and an array of old burial grounds and church ruins in every direction.
The term Sacred Landscape has been used extensively to describe just such an area. It's not a term I like, smacking as it does of something else rather than the day to day living and dying that went on here and everywhere else over thousands of years. People lived and made their marks some of which survive, some not.
Anyway Knocknashee and the area around it is a wonderful landscape which is probably better off remaining relatively unknown. I can't help comparing it to a much more famous hill, Tara, with its few earthworks with fancy made-up names.
There is an emigrant ballad called The Hill(s) of Knocknashee. A number of versions on YouTube, here and here. You can buy a version here.
So there's not a great reason for me to write a poem on the visit . . . or is there? It was All Soul's Day of course.
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