The Carrowmore Passage Tomb Cemetery in County Sligo, 'Ceathru Mor' meaning
'Great Quarter', is the largest cemetery of megalithic tombs in Ireland and is also one
of the country's oldest and covers an area of about one square kilometer. It originally
consisted of as many as 200 tombs but today only 30 monuments of varying degrees of
preservation remain and archaeological excavations and radio carbon dating has
discovered megalithic tombs that date before the introduction of farming and date them
to about 5,000 BC. The tomb entrances seem to face the central part of the cemetery
and Tomb 51 'Listroghill', rather than any point of the compass and this is a
significant difference as with later megalithic tomb builders who carefully sited their
tombs, taking into account solar and astronomical alignments for the location of their
tombs. The site is accessed via the Visitor Center which is operated by the OPW.
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