Oweynagat is a hole in the ground at the edge of a field near Tulsk, a low stone opening that leads into a tight fissure in the limestone. Above ground there is almost nothing to see, and that’s the first thing to know: the reward here is the stories, not a view. The second is that the cave is reached through the Rathcroghan Visitor Centre, which is currently restricting cave entry on its site tours while it reviews safety. Check with the centre before you book, and don’t expect to go underground.
What the cave has instead of scenery is a reputation. Medieval writers called it Ireland’s ‘Gate to Hell’, the mouth of the Otherworld. It is the lair of the Morrígan, the shape-shifting war-goddess, and in folklore the source of the creatures that poured out each Samhain and sent people indoors behind lit fires and disguises – the distant ancestor of Halloween.
The stories
Oweynagat (Uaimh na gCat, the Cave of the Cats) sits inside Rathcroghan, the sprawling royal complex of County Roscommon that was the seat of Medb, the warrior queen of Connacht. The cave runs all through the early Irish tales. In the Echtra Nerai, the warrior Nera follows a host of the dead into the cave on Samhain night and comes back with a vision of the burning of Cruachan. The Morrígan is said to ride out of it, and from here came the otherworldly cow whose calf grew into the Brown Bull of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the prize at the centre of Ireland’s oldest epic. One local legend even has the cave connecting underground to the caves of Kesh in Sligo, discovered, the story goes, when a calf dragged a woman the whole way through.
Inside the cave
The entrance is a man-made souterrain, about 10.5 m of drystone walling, upright slabs and lintels, built over the natural cave mouth, its covering mound mostly lost when a farm track was cut through. Beyond it the natural limestone fissure runs on for roughly 37 m and drops about 7 m below ground, narrow but high, around 2.5 m wide.
Two of the lintel stones carry Ogham, the rare survival that makes the cave matter to archaeologists as much as to storytellers. One reads VRAICCI MAQI MEDVI – ‘of Fraech, son of Medb’ – tying the stones straight back to the cave’s legends. A second, fragmentary inscription, QR G SMU, has never been deciphered. The passage is narrow and wet, and the black cat of the name lives on as the site’s modern emblem rather than a real doorkeeper, so don’t count on a welcoming committee.
Seeing it: tours and access
The cave is on private farmland, protected under the National Monuments Act. Start at the Rathcroghan Visitor Centre in Tulsk and ask what the current tour includes before booking. The centre is restricting cave entry on site tours while it reviews safety, so follow its access instructions. Use the guided tour for site access and leave the surrounding farmland undisturbed; don’t waste an afternoon trying to find the cave on your own.
The visitor centre exhibition explains the archaeological landscape and the stories told about it, which is a good way to get the Oweynagat legends in context even when the cave itself is off the itinerary.
Practical information
- Access: Cave entry is currently restricted on site tours. Book and confirm through the Rathcroghan Visitor Centre, Tulsk, and check what the tour includes.
- Admission: Check current tour and visitor centre prices when booking.
- Fitness and accessibility: Not suitable for anyone with mobility difficulties. If entry resumes, the passage is a tight squeeze and the initial section requires crawling, so it is not for the claustrophobic.
- Getting there: The visitor centre is in Tulsk, between Roscommon town and Strokestown. Check current public transport options before travelling.
- Refreshments: Check what the visitor centre café offers on the day. Black Donkey Brewery’s Underworld Savage Ale is brewed with wild yeast swabbed from the cave’s own walls.
Nearby
- Rathcroghan Mound – The flat-topped ceremonial earthwork at the centre of the complex. Ask the visitor centre what its tours include.
- Carnfree – The inauguration mound where the kings of Connacht were crowned, another of the complex’s monuments.
- Boyle Abbey – A well-preserved Cistercian ruin on the River Boyle, about 20 minutes’ drive.
- Castlecoote – A 17th-century manor house with gardens, roughly half an hour away.
Plan around the visitor centre’s exhibition and tour as they currently stand, and treat the cave itself as a bonus if access returns. From the surface it’s a gap in a field boundary, and everything that makes it worth the trip is in the dark and in the guide’s telling.