Overview
The 12th-century Book of Leinster calls Oweynagat dorus iffirn na hÉrend, the gate of hell of Ireland, and getting in lives up to the billing: you crawl on your hands and knees through a three-metre souterrain before the passage opens into a natural limestone chamber. From the surface it’s utterly unassuming, a black slot under a lone hawthorn in the ditch of a field near Tulsk, County Roscommon. The power of the place is the stories, not the geology.
Oweynagat (Uaimh na gCat, ‘Cave of the Cats’) sits within the Rathcroghan complex, one of the royal sites of Ireland and the seat of the kings and queens of Connacht. It’s on private farmland, so the only way in is a guided tour from the Rathcroghan Visitor Centre in Tulsk. If you can, that’s the one thing to do here: go with a guide, and ask when you book whether your tour actually descends into the cave, because not every tour or season does.
The mythology
The cave’s reputation runs back through early medieval literature. It appears in the 9th-century Cath Maige Mucrama and again in the Book of Leinster. The most vivid tale is the Echtra Nerai, the Adventures of Nera: the Connacht warrior Nera follows a ghostly host into the cave on Samhain night, sees a vision of Queen Medb’s palace destroyed, and escapes back carrying wild garlic and golden fern to prove he had been in the summery Otherworld while it was still winter above. That link to Samhain is why Oweynagat is often called a birthplace of Halloween.
It’s also named as the home of the Morrígan, the goddess of war and the Otherworld, who is said to emerge from it; in the tale of Odras she drives her cattle into the cave and turns her pursuer into a river. The cave’s own name comes from a story of monstrous wildcats that sprang out of the dark to test visiting Ulster heroes. Local folklore goes further still, claiming the cave runs all the way to the Caves of Kesh in County Sligo, after a woman who grabbed a runaway calf was dragged underground and surfaced near Keshcorran three days later.
Inside the cave
Two ancient Ogham-inscribed lintels were re-used as roof stones over the entrance, taken from older monuments. The legible one reads VRAICCI MAQI MEDVVI, ‘of Fráoch, son of Medb’ – a rare written thread back to the Ulster Cycle. The wall is also still said to bear the carved signature of Douglas Hyde, Ireland’s first President.
Past the man-made souterrain the cave becomes a long, narrow natural rift in the limestone. It isn’t a show cave of stalactites and chambers; cavers rate it as modest. What you get instead is the experience: total dark, cool still air, and the weight of two thousand years of story pressing in.
Visiting
- The squeeze is real. The first few metres are a tight, mud-slicked crawl on hands and knees. It is not for anyone with mobility difficulties, a larger frame, or a fear of confined spaces – go in clear-eyed about that.
- It’s a protected national monument on private land and a protected habitat. Don’t try to find your own way in; book the guided tour, which keeps the site (and you) safe.
- Booking and times – Tours run from the Rathcroghan Visitor Centre; book ahead and check rathcroghan.ie for current dates. The Samhain tours around 31 October are the most sought-after and sell out.
- What to wear – Boots and clothes you don’t mind ruining, warm layers, and a head-torch. It’s muddy, and it gets cold once you’re down.
- Facilities – Parking, toilets and a café are at the visitor centre in Tulsk; there’s nothing at the cave itself.
Nearby
The same guided tours take in the rest of Rathcroghan, including the great ceremonial Rathcroghan Mound. Further afield, Boyle Abbey and Roscommon Castle are both worth the drive.
Book through the Rathcroghan Visitor Centre rather than turning up at the field, and ask whether your tour goes inside – that’s the difference between seeing a hole under a hawthorn and crawling into Ireland’s gate to hell.