Climbing Slieve Gullion to see Calliagh Berra's House, the highest passage-tomb on the island of Ireland

I was up at Slieve Gullion today and decided to go and visit one of the ancient archaeological gems of Ireland that I had never seen before - the Calliagh Berra's House. This is a passage-tomb with covering cairn located on the summit of Slieve Gullion in County Armagh, at 570m above sea level. It is the highest passage-tomb in Ireland.

Setting out on the ascent up the path towards Calliagh Berra's House on Slieve Gullion.

Thankfully, there's a roadway that brings you to a small car park that is already 360m above sea level, so the walk/climb on foot is only a further 200m or so in elevation. Still, despite our brisk pace, it took my teenage sons and I about half an hour to make the climb. It was a dull day, although not cold, with only a light breeze. All the time it felt like it was going to rain but it mostly held off except for a very light drizzle for a few minutes at the top.

Looking south from Armagh towards Slieve Fuad (Fews Mountains).

The pathway up the mountain offers some beautiful views over the surrounding countryside. This was an excursion that stirred some excitement for me. I have long been a visitor to Sliabh na Calliagh, Loughcrew, hills in Meath scattered with ancient megalithic remnants. The two - Loughcrew and Slieve Gullion - are not only connected through their eponymous hag/goddess, but also through an alignment involving winter solstice.

As you get to the top of the path the cairn finally comes into view.

The path twists and turns and has been nicely laid out with smooth rocks in places, gravel in others, and just turf pathways in others. However, about halfway up things become more steep and the climb is a wee bit more arduous. This was no deterrent for my 14-year-old twins, who looked as nimble as Legolas running along the mountain ridges of Middle Earth. We met a man who said he was waiting on a bus! I suggested perhaps he was waiting on a helicopter. Truth be told, it might even be possible that a fairy bus does pass this way every once in a while.

The Calliagh Berra's Lake on the top of Slieve Gullion. Beyond it is another cairn, called the Northern Cairn.

The top of the mountain is remarkable. It has a small lake on it, known as the Calliagh Berra's lake. There is a story about Fionn Mac Cumhaill and this lake, which is nicely recounted on the Ring of Gullion website:

Fionn walked up the slopes of Slieve Gullion to the lake near the summit to find a beautiful young lady sobbing on the water’s edge. Being a gentleman he enquired as to why she was crying; to which she replied that she had dropped her golden ring in the bottomless lake. Without a moment’s hesitation Fionn ripped off his shirt and dived in, swam down until he found the ring, grabbed it and returned to the top only to find an old hag laughing, the Calliagh Berra. The witch had tricked Fionn and he fell out on the lake’s shore as an old withered man. When Fionn came down the mountain, no-one recognised him, not even the Fianna! However, when his trustworthy Irish Hounds smelled the old man they knew that he was their Master. Fionn, the Fianna, and the hounds forced the Calliagh Berra to restore Fionn to his youth, but it is said that his hair remained white like an old man’s for the rest of his life, and that his fate is said to befall anyone who bathes in the lake to this very day. Are you brave enough to dip your feet in the Calliagh Berra’s lake?

The cairn itself is known as Calliagh Berra's House and is just one of many ancient megalithic remnants that is named in her honour. At last we got the opportunity to enter its ancient passageway. It seemed like I had been waiting to do this for a long time. I've only ever imagined what it would be like because I had never seen it before. You have to hunker down at the entrance which takes a bit of nimble movement, but once inside the main thing to concern yourself with is the rocks on the floor. It would be very easy to sprain an ankle in there because the floor is so uneven.

Inside the chamber of Calliagh Berra's House looking out through the passage entrance.

The chamber and rear recess of the passage-tomb on the top of Slieve Gullion.

You certainly get the sense of a devoted, determined and stoic people. They built this cairn out of rocks - large and small - on top of a mountain in a far-distant age (around 5,000 years ago, maybe more) at a time when there was no proper footwear, and nothing like construction site health and safety. Building passage-tombs must have been a dangerous occupation in those times. It takes effort just to climb the mountain. But then to start hauling stones around the place in the cutting wind and inevitable rain must have been an undertaking requiring a serious devotion to the task. Calliagh Berra obviously commanded a pious respect among the ancient megalithic builders.

Another thing that strikes you is the lack of megalithic art. And indeed the lack of enormous structural stones such as those you find at Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth - the large corridor orthostats, the bulky ceiling cap stones, the three-tonne kerb stones. This is a different type of structure to the Brugh na Bóinne complex. Similar in some respects, but different in others.

Sitting at the entrance of the passageway into Calliagh Berra's House.

They say first impressions last though. And Calliagh Berra's House made a deep impression on me. Such that I can say I would love to go back - and soon. Ideally in better weather, which makes for better photos. A trip up there for winter solstice sunset would be a distinct possibility. I'd love to see the sun shining in there as it sets beyond the distant hills of Loughcrew.

One thing that did slightly disappoint was the lack of a marker for Loughcrew on the direction plate on top of the cairn. However, even on a murky day like today the views are still beautiful. On a clear day, it's apparently possible to see the Slieve Bloom Mountains some 85 miles distant.

Upon turning to leave, it's not difficult to see how landscape made such a deep impression upon the imaginative and creative sensitivities of ancient people. Ireland is a beautiful country. I am reminded of this constantly. The journey back down the mountain created a greater awareness of that fact than the journey up. When you climb a hill or mountain, you are ever looking on ahead, upwards, towards the summit, the goal. You have a determination, and must concentrate your energies on getting there. On the way down, it's as if you have lightened your load, and the landscape unfurls beneath you. Even with the approaching rain, it looked heavenly. And that's a stark reminder of the real power that elevated megalithic sites must have had - engendering a sense of detachment from the sublunary world, providing an encroachment into the upper, divine levels, away from humdrum civilisation and altogether closer to something austere, numinous and regenerative.

The Hag's Chair at Loughcrew - the throne, perhaps, of an ancient queen of the sky and the land

This is the so-called Hag's Chair at Cairn T, Sliabh na Calliagh, Loughcrew. Although it is part of the kerb of the cairn, it is unlike any other kerb stone on any Irish passage-tomb. We know very little about it, except what myth and folklore offer by way of mysterious and vague explanation.

Amid all the more modern graffiti, some of the really ancient carvings can still be seen on the Hag's Chair.

The Cailleach (or hag/witch/crone/goddess) of Loughcrew is ubiquitous on these hills. The story of the cairns is the story of this ancient figure of mythical intrigue. The creation myth of Loughcrew (for that is how it can be best described) suggests that she built the cairns, somewhat haphazardly, by dropping stones from an apron of stones as she jumped from hill to hill. She is said to have come from the north, which is interesting, because towards the northern aspect we find the rounded mountain of Slieve Gullion in Armagh - another place associated with the Cailleach (who goes by different names) and has a passage-tomb on its top which has a passage that points towards Loughcrew for winter solstice sunset.

"This is a very old lady whose shade still haunts the lake and carn of Slieve Guillion in the county of Armagh. Her name was Evlin, and it would appear from some legends about her that she was of De Danannite origin.... Does her name, Eibhlín bheurtha inghin Thuilinn, appear in the genealogies of the Tuatha De Dananns?"(1)

Cairn T at Loughcrew, also known as The Hag's Cairn.

Some sources suggest that the ancient Cailleach might have been the Queen Tailte(2), in whose honour the Tailteann Games were held at nearby Teltown.  As the Cailleach Bhéartha, she is the one who brought the cairns into existence, but not untypical of such creation myths, she is killed in the effort:

There are three hills about a mile asunder in this parish, having three heaps (carns) of stones on their summits, with which the following wild legend is connected. A famous old Hag of antiquity called Cailleach Bhéartha (Calliagh Vera) came one time from the north to perform a magical feat in this neighbourhood by which she was to obtain great power if she succeeded. She took an Apron-full of stones and dropped a carn on Carnbane; from this she jumped to the summit of Slieve Nacally a mile distant and dropped a second carn there; from this hill she made a second jump and dropped a carn on another hill about a mile distant. If she could make another leap and drop the fourth carn it appears that the magical feat would be accomplished, but in giving the jump she slipped and fell in the townland of Patrickstown in the parish of Diamor, where she broke her neck. Here she was buried and her grave was to be seen not many years ago in a field called Cul a' Mhóta about 200 perches to the East of the moat in that Townland, but it is now destroyed.(3)

I speculate here that the second part of her name, Bhéartha/Vera possibly derives from the Irish word bert or beirt, meaning "burden, load, bundle".(4)

It's interesting that she has several different names - Cailleach Bhéartha (Cally Vera), Evlin (Eibhlín), Garvoge and even Tailte. The hills also go by different names. Carnbane (carn bán) is the one we know today as Carnbane West. In one version, it is called Carnmore (from carn mór, the big cairn). Indeed, the largest cairn in the whole Loughcrew complex, Cairn D, is on Carnbane West. Carrigbrack, which does not feature in some versions of the creation myth, is from carraig (stone) and breac (speckled), thus "speckled rock", but is also known as Sliabh Rua (Red Mountain), for which there is a very obvious and fascinating astronomical reason connected with local alignments. Sliabh na Calliagh (also anglicised as Slieve Nacally) is, apparently, also known as Carnbeg (carn beag, the small carn). Although because there is a middle hill called Loar, one wonders if Loar was Carrigbrack or Carnbane East, possibly making Patrickstown Hill the Carnbeg of the variant. More research needed here I think!

Sliabh na Calliagh, crowned by the Hag's Cairn, in the dawn sky, viewed from Carnbane.

Wont as I am to engage in speculation, I have often wondered if the story of the old hag dropping stones as she leaped from hill to hill is not in fact related to the movements of the sun, moon and the stars somehow. We know that several cairns point to other cairns (Cairn L points to the cairn on Carrigbrack, for instance; Cairn I points to Cairn T, etc). Is the cailleach the moon? We know from research into the Boyne Valley monuments that Venus (the Morning Star) was known as caillichín na mochóirighe, meaning "early-rising little hag"(5). It is tempting indeed to view the moon, with its darker areas, as an apron or bag full of stones. As she drops the stones, the moon becomes smaller, until it fades to a slender crescent into the growing light of morning, before eventually disappearing (in the east) as the dawn comes.

It is possible also that the cairns might mark out various important lunar risings and settings which mark out its course through the sky during the 18.6-year rotation of its nodes. Observation of this cycle leads to the observation of lunar standstills and the prediction of lunar eclipses. Martin Brennan and his team of researchers (including Jack Roberts) made several important discoveries at Loughcrew in the 1980s, showing certain astronomical alignments. They made several observations of lunar events. It would be nice if this work was followed up. In the fullness of time, a greater story about the astronomical complexity of Loughcrew might emerge. And, perhaps, a "solution" that cracks the meaning of the myth of the Cally Vera.

Until then, we can only suggest that some day this ancient queen might return, and claim her throne once more.

References
(1) Conwell, Eugene, On Ancient Sepulchral Cairns on the Loughcrew Hills, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Vol. 9, p.357.
(2) For instance, http://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5070784/5063151/5095468
(3) From John O'Donovan's Ordnance Survey Letters (Meath).
(4) Dil.ie
(5) Murphy & Moore (2006), Island of the Setting Sun, p.167.

Further reading: 
http://blog.mythicalireland.com/2016/08/the-story-of-cailleach-of-loughcrew-and.html