Carrick-on-Shannon

The county town of Leitrim and the boating capital of the Shannon. The Costello Memorial Chapel, built in 1877 by a grieving husband, is said to be the second smallest chapel in the world — barely large enough for the two coffins it holds.

Carrick-on-Shannon grew at a ford on the Shannon; old maps call it Carrick Drumrusk. An Iron Age fortification stands near Drumsna, and Corryolus townland remembers Eolais, ancestor of the Muintir Eolais of Mohill and Leitrim. The Battle of Áth an Chip, where the Normans were beaten in 1270, was fought nearby. The town was made a borough with its own seal in 1607. Its workhouse and Famine graveyard, Hatley Manor and the tiny Costello Chapel survive, and the council offices stand on the site of the old gaol, mostly demolished in the 1960s.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Carrick-on-Shannon ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Lough Scur · tomb · 13 km
• Kiltubbrid · holy well · 14 km
• O'Rourke's Castle · castle · 5 km
• McDermott's Castle · castle · 10 km
• Rockingham Estate · castle · 11 km
• Lough Scur · castle · 13 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

• Carrowkeel passage tombs · Fourteen Neolithic tombs on the Bricklieve ridges, one aligned so the midsummer sunset shines down its passage — the mirror of Newgrange, with no crowds.
• Rathcroghan (Cruachan) · Queen Medb's royal seat: 240 monuments over four square miles, including Oweynagat, the cave called 'the gate to Hell' — one claimed home of Halloween.
• Magh Slécht · ‘The plain of prostrations’, where the idol Crom Cruach stood ringed by twelve others. Patrick is said to have felled it with his crozier from the next hill, and the twelve to have been swallowed by the earth. A decorated La Tène stone found at Killycluggin is the candidate for the idol itself.
• Strokestown Park · The landlord here shipped 1,490 tenants to Canada in 1847, half died, and was shot dead that November. His house is now the National Famine Museum.
• Moytura · Second Battle of Mag Tuired: the Tuatha Dé Danann against the Fomorians. Lugh of the Long Arm kills his grandfather Balor of the Evil Eye with a sling-stone through the eye.
• Rathcroghan — Oweynagat · The 'cave of the cats', birthplace of Queen Medb and doorway to the Otherworld: at Samhain its creatures pour out into the world. One root of Halloween.
• Cruachan — Medb's court · Where Medb and Ailill's 'pillow talk' about whose wealth was greater started the Cattle Raid of Cooley — over one brown bull.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.