Carrowmore and Queen Maeve's Cairn

Carrowmore and Queen Maeve - Watercolour and Gouache on Illustration Board

Last Sunday, I took a trip to the megalithic site at Carrowmore Keel which is not far from here in County Sligo. The site represents the largest cluster of megaliths in Ireland and is also one of the largest sites of its kind in the world. Most of the stones were laid at Carrowkeel between four and nearly seven thousand years ago. However, these dates are speculative and the monuments could be far older. 

It was a stunning Summer's afternoon and I wanted to capture the movement of clouds coming in from the Atlantic in the direction of Queen Maeve's Cairn on top of the Knocknarea limestone mountain in the distance. I played around with the positioning of the stones somewhat to make the scene slightly more artistically pleasing for the composition. This being a plein air painting done on the location, the paint dried very quickly. Hence, the frenetic style of the brushstrokes and splattering.

Megalith Detail with White Gouache Cloud Highlight and Watercolour Glazes

While I was at the site, I became fascinated as to why this location on the edge of Europe would contain large numbers of megaliths, which are also of a greater complexity than ones found to the east in Britain and Europe? This enigma lends some credence to the West > East migration theory, rather than the Biblically-orientated East > West cultural migration beliefs of mainstream academia. The further towards the Atlantic fringes one travels, the complexity and accuracy of the ancient stone sites becomes more apparent.