Most tourists, both Irish and international, will be unfamiliar with Rathcroghan in County Roscommon, but it used to be the ancient royal capital of Connacht. With over 240 ancient monuments in the area, Rathcroghan is “one of the most important prehistoric and early medieval landscapes in all of Ireland," according to Daniel Curley who manages the site's visitor center in the nearby town of Tulsk. The site includes a wide array of prehistoric monuments, including burial mounds, ringforts, temple sites, and even a ritual gate to the otherworld, described as Ireland's " Gate to Hell .
" Sign up to IrishCentral's newsletter to stay up-to-date with everything Irish! At least 28 of the monuments are more than 5,000 years old and date back as far as the Bronze and Iron Ages. The Cattle Raid of Cooley, one of the most famous pieces of Irish mythology, also began at Rathcroghan. However, while the sites at Newgrange and Tara continue to draw large volumes of tourists, Rathcroghan remains largely forgotten.
Rathbeg, Rathcroghan, Co Roscommon. (Ireland's Content Pool) Curley has a simple explanation for this. He said that Rathcroghan, like many other areas west of the River Shannon, was neglected while Newgrange and Tara were being renovated.
“While ground-breaking research and excavation were being conducted on the great sites of Co Meath from the 1960s onwards, Rathcroghan was largely forgotten until relatively recently,” he said to the Irish Times . “Anything west of the Sha.
