Slieve Gullion
— the cairn the winter sun finds.
Not only on a wall.
“A mountain in south Armagh, ringed by thirteen smaller hills called the Ring of Gullion. The whole formation is the weathered remains of a volcano that erupted roughly sixty million years ago. On the summit sits a Neolithic cairn older than the pyramids, with a chamber the winter solstice sunset still finds. Beside the cairn, a small dark lake. The old name is Calliagh Berra's Lough, after the witch who, in the story, bathed Fionn mac Cumhaill until his hair went grey. The drive around the ring is eight miles, low gear, slow.
Slieve Gullion, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Slieve Gullion rises 573 metres above the rolling drumlin country of south County Armagh, the highest point in the county and the centerpiece of the Ring of Gullion. The mountain itself is the deeply weathered remains of a ring dyke, a circular structure of igneous rock that formed when a volcanic complex collapsed roughly sixty million years ago. Thirteen smaller hills ring it at a distance of a few miles, the dyke wall. The Ring of Gullion was designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1991. The summit is reached on foot from the upper car park of Slieve Gullion Forest Park, a climb of about ninety minutes. The town of Newry sits eight miles to the north.
At the summit sit two cairns, the southern of which is the highest surviving passage grave in Ireland. The South Cairn is roughly five thousand years old, built sometime in the fourth millennium BCE by the Neolithic farming people of the surrounding lowlands. Its inner chamber is oriented to the setting sun of the winter solstice; on a clear December afternoon, the light still reaches the back wall. Beside the cairn lies a small dark lake known in Irish as Calliagh Berra's Lough, the only natural body of water at this elevation in the region. The cairn and the lake together belong to the older mythological landscape of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the Cattle Raid of Cooley, which the hero Cú Chulainn defended single-handed.
Access to the mountain is through Slieve Gullion Forest Park, opened in 1958 and run today by Forest Service Northern Ireland. The park has an eight-mile one-way scenic drive that loops the base of the mountain; the drive is open most days, with occasional closures in winter weather. From the upper car park, a marked trail climbs to the South Cairn in about ninety minutes. The terrain is exposed and turns boggy in wet weather; sturdy footwear is essential. The forest park is open daily from eight in the morning until sunset, and admission is free. The nearest town for lodging and supplies is Newry, eight miles north on the A1.