Close to Sligo town, Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery contains some of the oldest excavated stone monuments in Ireland. It is owned by the state and open to the public.
The Carrowmore tombs were first surveyed in 1837 by George Petrie when many of them had already been destroyed. More have been lost since. Petrie's numbering system is still in use at the site and is also used here.
G. Burenhult and a Swedish team excavated a number of tombs (1977-1982) both in this "cemetery" and the wider local area. Their efforts yielded radio carbon construction dates that were earlier than many were prepared to accept, thus they are disputed. Nonetheless, they are among the earliest stone monuments in Ireland, and if some of the dates should actually indicate prior activity on the sites rather than tomb construction then they constitute evidence for probable mesolithic calendrical usage of these exact locations.
Only three of the sites have been surveyed so far, all to the north of the Visitor Centre:
- Tomb 3 : Excavated & dated to c.5000BCE.
- Tomb 4 : Unexcavated.
- Tomb 7 : Excavated & dated to c.4200BCE.