Once one of Ireland’s great ancient capitals

Rathcroghan is one of the four ancient Royal sites of Ireland and has been a place of burial and ritual gatherings for over 6000 years. There are over 240 identified archaeological sites of which 60 are protected within an area of about 2.5 square miles. These range from natural limestone caves, ancient burial mounds and ringforts, ritual sites, linear earthworks, and medieval field systems. Oweynagat (Uaimh na ngat – Cave of the Cats) is also set within the complex. The otherworldly battle goddess, the Mórrigan, is said to dwell within this cave; making the cave one of three on the Island allowing movement between this tangible, ‘Real-World’, and ‘The Otherworld’. Rathcroghan is the starting point for a whole series of Iron Age heroic cattle-raiding tales, known as na Tána. Indeed, the central tale of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, an Táin Bó Cúailnge, Ireland’s greatest epic, rises out of Rathcroghan, at the behest of the famous Iron Age Warrior Queen Medb (Maeve) of Connacht.