Binding: Paperback
Date Published: 14 Sep 2026
A legend is stirring.
Stories of Queen Maeve have lingered across Connacht and the Atlantic coast since her death two thousand years ago. A Sligo surfer has heard whispers on the tide that this ancient Irish warrior is waking from her slumber. From the mysterious passage tombs of Knocknarea and Carrowmore to the enormous swells that break at Mullaghmore, Waking Maeve carries readers on a rolling wave from Stone Age to the era of rock ’n’ roll, tracking the myths, landscapes and people that shaped Ireland’s northwest.
Along the way, you’ll meet kings and queens, saints and Vikings, poets and rebels, shipwrecks, surfers and dreamers who left their mark on one of Ireland’s most extraordinary landscapes.
Guided by the enduring spirit of the Neolithic people of the northwest, Queen Maeve and the poet WB Yeats, Seamus Mc Goldrick reveals the deep connections between past and present, inviting readers to discover why Sligo continues to captivate, inspire and surprise.
Waking Maeve: an excavation of Sligo’s landscape, myth and history explores the people, myths and landscapes that have shaped one of Ireland’s most significant sacred precincts.
Sligo surf pioneer, former physics student and three-time national champion Seamus Mc Goldrick has turned his attention from the huge waves of Mullaghmore to the ancient landscape of his native county with the publication of Waking Maeve: an excavation of Sligo’s landscape, myth and history.
The result is Waking Maeve, an ambitious journey through Sligo’s past, bringing together archaeology, mythology, history, literature and the lives of the people who have shaped the northwest of Ireland.
“I grew up in the orbit of Knocknarea in a village that was the hub of nineties surfing in Ireland,” says Mc Goldrick. “The landscape was as extraordinary as the waves, but I became hungry to know more about the mysterious cairns built by my ancestors at Knocknarea, Carrowmore and Carns Hill. Writing Waking Maeve led me to better understand the people who built these monuments and how they shape how we see Sligo today. Now it is time to share these stories.”
The book’s guiding light is Queen Maeve, one of the great figures of Irish mythology and Connacht’s best-remembered ancient warrior. Local tradition says Maeve is buried under the great cairn of Knocknarea, but the full story is richer and more revealing. Maeve ruled from her power base in Rathcroghan in County Roscommon, sixty kilometres from the enormous Meascán Méadhbha, which Knocknarea expert Stefan Bergh says has no match in Ireland.
The Coolera Peninsula contains an extraordinary concentration of prehistoric monuments. Of the approximately 250 passage tombs in Ireland, around 70 are found on the Coolera Peninsula, where much of Ireland’s ancient history is cradled between Knocknarea, Carns Hill and Carrowmore. For Mc Goldrick, the archaeological evidence shows Sligo was central to the development of ancient Ireland.
Stefan Bergh calls the Coolera Peninsula the ‘Landscape of Monument’. In Waking Maeve, Seamus explores the connection between the Neolithic monument builders and the Sligo landscape itself, which later ignited the cultural vision of poet W.B. Yeats.
From the mysterious passage tombs of Knocknarea and Carrowmore to the enormous swells that break at Mullaghmore, Waking Maeve carries readers on a rolling wave from the Stone Age to the era of rock ’n’ roll. Along the way, readers encounter kings and queens, saints and Vikings, poets and rebels, shipwrecks, surfers and dreamers who left their mark on one of Ireland’s most extraordinary landscapes.
“An evocative journey through myth, memory and marine identity, Waking Maeve reconnects us with the ancient relationship between people, place and sea. Seamus Mc Goldrick brings Ireland’s northwest vividly to life thro