World heritage sites

The World Heritage List includes over one thousand sites spread across 167 countries.

The annual World Heritage Committee meeting reviews new proposals for inscription.

Three World Heritage sites are located on the island of Ireland: Brú na Bóinne, Sceilg Mhicíl, and the Giant's Causeway.

Brú na Bóinne - Archaeological Ensemble of the Bend of the Boyne

Date of Inscription: 1993

The three main prehistoric sites of the Brú na Bóinne Complex, Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, are situated on the north bank of the River Boyne 50 km north of Dublin.

This is Europe's largest and most important concentration of prehistoric megalithic art. The monuments there had social, economic, religious and funerary functions.

Sceilg Mhichíl - Co Kerry

Date of Inscription: 1996

Sceilg Mhichíl is an outstanding, and in many respects unique, example of an early religious settlement deliberately sited on a pyramidal rock in the ocean, preserved because of a remarkable environment.

It illustrates, as no other property can, the extremes of a Christian monasticism characterizing much of North Africa, the Near East, and Europe.

Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast - Co Antrim

Date of Inscription: 1986

The Giant's Causeway lies at the foot of the basalt cliffs along the sea coast on the edge of the Antrim plateau in Northern Ireland.

It is made up of some 40,000 massive black basalt columns sticking out of the sea. The dramatic sight has inspired legends of giants striding over the sea to Scotland.

Geological studies of these formations over the last 300 years have greatly contributed to the development of the earth sciences, and show that this striking landscape was caused by volcanic activity during the Tertiary, some 50–60 million years ago.