Cloughmore

Cloughmore is a huge granite boulder sitting almost 300 metres above Rostrevor village in County Down. Known locally as ‘The Big Stone’, it stands on the slopes of Slieve Martin in Kilbroney Park. From its perch it looks out over Rostrevor Forest, Carlingford Lough and the Cooley Peninsula. The boulder is part of a National Nature Reserve and an Area of Special Scientific Interest. Visitors often make the short climb to see it for themselves. The stone weighs about fifty tonnes and is a glacial erratic. Experts believe it was carried from Scotland, from an island in Strathclyde Bay, by ice during the last Ice Age. Around ten thousand years ago the retreating glacier left it on a flat patch of Silurian metasedimentary rock. Local stories say the hero Fionn mac Cumhaill hurled it from the Cooley Mountains across Carlingford Lough. A winding path leads from the edge of Kilbroney Park up to the boulder. The final approach is across open ground to the flat slab where the stone rests. From there wide views stretch across the lough to the Cooley Peninsula and down to Rostrevor village. The contrast between the massive granite block and the surrounding woodland makes the scene striking.