The cairns at Loughcrew may have been one of my favourite places to visit, if only because we got to see them on our own, wander about them at our pleasure after picking up the key at the centre.

[of course, when picking up the key I was given directions to the cairns, which somehow went in one ear and right out the other and so we got lost and so we had to go back, and my partner was ever so brave going back inside to ask where we needed to go a second time.

Of course, I was really the brave one driving at all. Hunched over the wheel, white-knuckled. Pulling over regularly to let real drivers whiz past. It was grand.

Also, I left my glasses at the visitor’s centre so they would always remember me.]

In a landscape of inspiring beauty and intriguing history, the cairns at Loughcrew form the largest complex of passage graves in Ireland, much older than the better known Newgrange.

The Cairns are megalithic structures originally built about 4000 bc as burial chambers. The cairns are in two groups; Carnbane West, about 15 cairns, including Cairn L which is roofed and contains superb symbolic carvings in good condition.

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