March 2018

Every year the Italian Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche awards the Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens, which are particularly rich in natural, historical and creative values and this year the Céide Fields has been awarded this prestigious prize.

The announcement was made in Milan on Wednesday 21st March, and the formal prize-giving will take place on Saturday 12th May. There will be an exhibition in Treviso, a book and a TV documentary which forms part of an awareness campaign and is a fundamental element of the prize.

The Ceíde Fields (meaning “a flat-topped hill” in Irish) is a Neolithic or Stone Age farmed landscape which dates around five thousand years ago and has been honoured in the award scheme because of the way the natural landscape is used at the site.

The Ceide Fields has been honoured in the award scheme because of the way the natural landscape is used at the site.

The OPW designed the award-winning the Ceide Fields Visitors Centre. It not only presents the archaeology of the site but also the botany, bogs and geology of the area. It is located beside spectacular 370ft high cliffs, five miles west of Ballycastle.

Visitors to the Centre can enjoy an audio-visual show as well as the exhibitions inside, including a magnificent 4,300-year-old Scots Pine tree which dominates the centre of the building. The exhibitions are arranged around three main themes – the natural landscape, the human imprint on the landscape and the geology of the stunning North Mayo coast.

A panoramic viewing platform both inside and outside on the roof of the glass-topped pyramid-shaped building affords dramatic views of sea and land.

Also, visitors can indulge themselves in a vast prehistoric landscape, a natural wild ecology of blanket bog, dramatic cliffs and coastline. Here the remains of stone field walls, houses and megalithic tombs are preserved beneath a wild, unspoiled bogland. It’s a unique experience.