The Coolera peninsula is a strip of land a few miles south of Sligo town, surrounded by mountains and sea, which was settled by ancient people in very early times. The peninsula is dominated by the beautiful mountain of Knocknarea which rises to a height of 321 meters at the western end.
The peninsula contains some fine farming land. In the 1830's and 40's many of the monuments were cleared and destroyed in land improvement and quarrying schemes. Today the sites of some 40 dolmens and circles are known, with 27 remaining in reasonable condition. The court cairns were thought to be the oldest type of megalithic monument, temples of our first cattle-herding farmers.
Located within a small wooded area by the Airport Road in Strandhill, the cache consists of a regular size cylinder and contains a pen and a logbook, as well as a FTF reward. Treadables were not included due to current safety considerations. GZ can be easily reached by entering the woods straight up from the Business Park welcome sign (see picture 1). The court cairn itself can be visited in a grassy clearance a short distance away. An information panel has been recently installed on the site (see gallery).
More information on this and other archeological sites of County Sligo please refer to the excellent www.carrowkeel.com