Showing 1-20 of 187 fieldnotes. Most recent first | Next 20 
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I wasn't expecting much from this ruined mound and I wasn't disappointed, at least not be the mound itself. What is it, what was its purpose, is it even prehistoric? I don't know the answer to any of these, but it is in a prime location, high above what would have been the River Dodder and is now one of the Glenasmole reservoirs. Ballinascorney Gap directly west has a barrow and a cairn, Piperstown Hill to the south-east is a habitation site and has a cairn cemetery, and there are many other prehistoric places that would be visible from here had the views not been blocked by modern hedgerows. An intriguing spot, but what a slog to get to!
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Piperstown is a place slow to give up its secrets. I pass it by every once in a while and wonder. Burl mentions it in his Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany in connection with site K, where a circle of 5 or 6 standing stones were revealed upon excavation.
Altogether there are said to be 8 cairns and 7 structures/hut sites on the hill. There's also a pre-bog wall on top of the hill with 3 more cairns associated with it. Piperstown Hill is like a central locus in the area, with views all around. There is much more going on here than is immediately apparent, but I've just now discovered a map/plan of the site and intend to return soon before the heather and gorse really take hold.
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I've been in this field before looking at the lumps and bumps and have said to myself there's something going on here. It's just up the road from me, less than a 10 minute drive. I've surveyed the archaeology.ie website for sites in my vicinity and this comes up as a "Cairn, unclassified" and has no notes.
It's about 1.4 metres high, oval, maybe 6 metres on its longer axis, by 4 metres on the shorter. There's a much-flattened ring barrow about 350 metres to the north-west and there are some signs of habitation sites/earthworks in the immediate area.
I'm not entirely convinced by this, though it's hard to disagree that it is artificial – the stones that I saw on the western side of the cairn looked suspiciously like bedrock to me. Maybe this was incorporated into the cairn/barrow and there is a burial at its core.
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A quick visit to Killakee wedge tomb with my daughter and a friend. There's the usual trash about the area, a popular spot so close to Dublin. This, though ruined, is actually quite a good example of a classic wedge tomb. Double-walling is visible on both sides; much of the other structural stones are still there, though a more modern wall cuts through the front of the tomb. The presence of a massive beech tree in the south-west corner of the wedge does detract and distract. The ground to the east falls steeply away about 10 metres behind the tomb.
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My plan for the day in Fenagh had included a visit to the court tomb in the neighbouring parish of Commons, as many of the standing stones and sundry other pre-christian monuments in the vicinity, and, of course, Fenagh Beg portal tomb and its attendant passage tombs and cairn. So far I'd been put off coming here by a combination of a local lass and Ken's fieldnotes about the bull. It had lashed hail at the court tomb and I'd been attacked by hungry sheep, and the cluster of standing stones north-east of the village had proved utterly elusive. The best laid plans of mice and men…
I had earlier gone up the lane above and to the east of the tomb and had spied it across what now is a lake but is a stream on the maps. The field looked empty, but the very cool response that the local had given to my enthusiastic plan to jaunt across the private land had left me doubting the wisdom of such a venture. My companion and his dog had accompanied me on the fruitless leg of the standing stone search and now we were back in the centre of the village, not 300 metres due south of the tomb. So what to do?
My ventures out in the field have been drastically curtailed by the recession and the perpetual "f*** you, pay me" of my mortgage provider. So I'd killed two birds with one stone – visited my mate in Cavan town, and plotted an attack on Fenagh and its rich megalithic heritage. And here I was, on the verge of bottling the ultimate goal of my trip. Well, bollocks to that, as they say nearly everywhere. I spied a quick route over a farm gate, across an empty field where the remains of the first passage grave are – then it would be over another fence and across the field with the portal. I've done this type of manoeuver so often but never have I been cheered on by a friend and his dog. I said I'd be about 20 minutes and that I'd meet him back in the village and off I set.
I headed straight for the mound with the small chamber at its top. Because of the rush I was in I didn't give this much time. The small chamber is box-like, resembling a small kist. It's about a metre square and sits oddly at the top of the mound and gradually becomes visible as you cross the field from the south. Behind the mound is a fence/hedge and this cuts across the monument. Almost immediately over this is the second passage grave, a strange rectangular structure with a couple of stones from a chamber and some kerbstones on its north side. The odd thing about this is that it's all raised about a metre above the field level, including the kerb. It was excavated in 1928 and "Cremated bone, six bone pendants, the head of a bone pin, and one quartz and two chalk balls were recovered." Again, moving fast I didn't give this much time either.
And then on to the main event: the ivy is really taking over here. The capstone rests precariously on one portal (the other portal, like the capstone itself, having been broken), the backstone and the eastern sidestone. The broken piece of the roofstone is a couple of tons in itself and the complete tomb itself would have been quite a construction. What really gives this place its character though is the mad bush that has parasitically given the tomb a full head of hair. However, from what I could see on my brief visit, this is not as charming as it used to be and some of the ivy trunk/branches are really strangling the stone. As the plant increases in size and bulk I fear it's in real danger of pulling the already damaged and quite precariously balanced capstone down. All of the stone are of the same conglomerate that you find in Sligo and Leitrim and it's really rather brittle and erosion-prone.
Having said all that, this is really a fantastic place. There's an air of ancientness about the place with that really rugged, damp, loaminess to the surrounds. The view immediately north to the beginnings of Lough Reane is gorgeous. The people of the vicinity are aware of what they have on their doorstep but haven't come up with a way to make the most of it yet, what with the tensions between private property and public monuments and the disgraceful lack of a public right to roam movement in Ireland.
I left here way too soon and took a few shots of the very small cairn in the corner of the field. A fascinating and undervalued place that maybe I won't see again.
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We pulled in to Fenagh and parked up at the still functioning Church of Ireland church. Just as we got out of the car, the heavens opened with an almighty hail storm. My companion had a dog and agreed that it would be better if he went for a stroll around the old ecclesiastical sites while I checked the court tomb over the road.
Once the hail had stopped I headed over. It's not too far into the field and there was only one or two sheep in the vicinity. I headed down to the tomb and started to have a gawk. It is very prettily situated on a small hillock in sloping pasture. Just as I was trying to come to grips with its layout, attack of the very hungry sheep got underway. Suddenly, as if out of thin air, 100 sheep and lambs decided that I was daddy and that I had some fodder for them in these lean, hungry times. I've never had to retreat from a site because of sheep, but the racket they were making was enough to force me back without ever really having taken the time this tomb deserves. Ah well, there was always Elvis up the road!
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A nice evening stroll through Killykeen Forest Park, from the northern approach via Killashandra. This is that rare monument in the republic - marked on the map of the amenity and now in its own fenced enclosure. The forestry will be re-planted but there is a sufficient gap surrounding it to allow it to breathe a little.
5 minutes up the track from the parking space are the de-nuded remains of a co. Cavan dual court tomb. There is still much of the cairn/mound material lying strewn about and both tombs retain much of their structural stones. The gap between the backstones of the tombs is quite large, maybe 8 metres, the courts of both similarly diminutive. The stones are all of the same conglomerate that is found in the locality.
I'm beginning to think that I'm better off going to these places on my own, as most people that I go with are only momentarily interested and I don't get enough time to drink in the atmosphere. My companion here was bored within 5 minutes, so my visit was curtailed.
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Large barrow on the top of Athgoe Hill, just about inside the county Dublin boundary. Athgoe Hill and Lyons Hill are the last, most north-westerly, of a series of hills/mountains that form an arc to the south of Dublin city.
Access to the barrow is easy as there's a track up to the aerial/mobile phone mast. It's quite henge-like, about 45 metres in diameter and also quite ploughed/eroded away. In fact the national monument's database has this as an enclosure, with the remains of the barrow downslope to the north of here.
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This is a very accessible, surprisingly intact, and slightly overgrown monument. I must admit that I was taken aback by the condition of the henge, having understood from previous reading that it would be barely recognisable when encountered.
A 15 minute stroll uphill from the forestry entrance leaves you just beside Lugg henge. The outer ring is roughly 30 metres in diameter, with an outer ditch that is a metre deep in places, especially on the south to west arc. The bank rises to a metre and a half in places here as well.
Inside this is a second ring with a visible ditch and about 10 metres in diameter. Much else has gone on here over the milennia as excavations show that this is a multi-faceted, multi-period site. I was definitely impressed by this place, hidden away as it is in the trees, but I had to leave rather sooner than I wished. Somewhere I would like to return to and contemplate its purpose more lengthily.
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This was a bit of a slog, added to by my 4-year-old companion with equal measures of joy and impatience. It's quite a journey from the last available parking space at the entrance to the forestry, and when you do get to the vicinity of the tomb it's a bugger to spot as the ten-year-old pines completely hide it. It is exactly where it says it is on the map and if you have a bit of determination, you will find it – only leave any small children at home.
The forestry people had the good sense to leave quite a bit of space around the tomb when re-planting, allowing the monument to breathe a little. It's a charming little place, but the views are becoming ever more blocked as the pines shoot up. Much of the kerb and entrance is still standing on the west side of the tomb. The chamber, with its wig-like tree stump, is 1.8 metres by 1 metre by .6 of a metre high. There is slight evidence of a passage (I've often wondered on these small passage graves "Passage for who? The fairies?") and some other structural orthostats. The whole of the mound is about 10 metres in diameter.
Quite a magical little place, probably my first and last visit.
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I really liked this little monument. Said to be part of "a complex of prehistoric sites", there's a ring cairn two fields away that 4 of the photos here are of, and there's a quite substantial wedge tomb down the hill. This 'cairn' is very barrow-like and has a fosse, probably created by the digging of the material that makes up the mound. The stones on the mound may or may not be part of a disturbance/excavation.
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So to Bremore passage grave cemetery once again. The endangered Bremore passage grave cemetery. Five recorded passage graves (by Herity), a recorded fulacht fia, a recorded unclassified barrow and an unrecorded shell midden, all within a small corner of a small headland in the northernmost part of the county Dublin coastline.
We parked on the lane and headed into the cropless field towards the south-eastern mound. If this ever was a passage grave, it's been totally ruined beyond recognition. The mound, along with the next one a little to the north and the one to the extreme west of the group, are only recognisable as anything prehistoric because the farmer has desisted from ploughing them into oblivion. These three have a couple of boulders each that may be parts of kerbstones, but all three barely rise a half metre above the surrounding terrain. They are all elongated, their longer axis pointing back towards the main mound.
The main mound is a large, circular cairn that seems to have been robbed out, as opposed to the 'collapse' mentioned in the Monuments Database entry. It reminds me of the chunk taken out of Dowth. I had hoped to be able to explore the chamber/passage area a bit more given the time of year, but last year's brambles are too tightly woven and still quite vicious. Pity.
The tomb is less than 5 metres from the shoreline. We traversed our way down below the main mound and found a rather impressive shell midden. This looks to have been a feasting area, but the sea has eroded into the material and is in danger of washing it away altogether.
The last of the five so-called tombs is barely recognisable under all the vegetation, even though growth has been slow with our late Spring this year.
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In the townland of Collierstown is this small barrow. It now lies trapped behind the ugly fencing of Bellewstown race-track.
This is the entry from the Arch. Inventory of Co. Meath:
Oval mound (dims. 17m N-S, 12m E-W, H 1.8m), disturbed by digging SSW-NW. Cist (ME027-029001-) found c. 2m W of mound.
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On the way from Bellewstown to Herbertstown I nearly collided with these. They are not marked on the OS map sheet 43. Three large, squat megaliths sit there in the middle of a triangle that splits a y-shaped junction. They are said to be the remains of a stone circle on archaeology.ie but no other details are given. A nice curiosity, though I remembered seeing them on Megalithomania.com some years back.
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Didn't really want to approach this mound, though it is right beside a public right-of-way. The Delvin river here cuts through a small gorge and the mound is placed on a prominent shelf above this on the south side.
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Another Dublin city curiosity. I have passed this mound/barrow so many times and said to myself, if that's not a barrow then I'll never know what is. I've photographed it maybe 10 times, but to no great extent as I've never had the confidence to put it up here – try as one might but there is no mention of it anywhere that I can find, either in print or on the 'net (slight edit – wouldn't you know, it's on the national monuments database as a mound).
So imagine my surprise today as I brought my daughter to the playground nearby – there was the 'barrow' tightly surrounded by a temporary fence, with a mechanical digger not 10 metres from it and a woman in a hi-vis vest overseeing the operations.
I parked the car and headed over. I asked the woman what was going on. She said that works were underway to help with the drainage of this part of the park. It's the site of the popular, annual garden show 'Bloom' and the area has become flooded in recent years due to our great weather. Oh I see, said I, and why is that lump over there fenced off? Well that's a mound, says she, that could be very old. And are you an archaeologist, I asked. I am, she replied. So I took the plunge and said I was interested in that sort of thing and that for years I've believed it to be a prehistoric barrow. Well you just might be right, said she, but do you know the history of Ashtown Castle over there? Ah, I'm not really interested in that to the extent that I'm interested in this, says I, but thanks anyway, and off I headed.
So there you have it. An unmentioned barrow in the Phoenix Park where there have been other bronze-age burial finds.
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Holy or sacred wells don't do well on TMA - they usually get the 'of disputed antiquity' tag - so when on reading in Gary Branigan's book, The Ancient & Holy Wells of Dublin, that St.Mobhi's Well near Skerries had a "number of cup marks present on some of the boulders, pointing to possible Neolithic origin" I had to pay a visit.
The site is marked on OS sheet 43 at the right-hand side of a track in Milverton Demesne. The entrance to this contains a stile, and indeed 20 yards to its right there is a hand-written sign that says "Please use the stile" attached to some barbed wire. This barbed wire blocks off the old pathway to the well. After traversing the stile you need to turn right immediately and follow the old path, not the seductive track that we were fooled into taking, thus having to climb a thorn-covered wall and cross the stream that flows beside the well.
The old well is impressively, even megalithically, constructed. The huge boulder at the back of the well-house rests on some stones like a portal tomb. This is the only boulder that we could find that had anything resembling cup marks. To quote the book again: "These cup marks are said to be the finger impressions of the mythical Fionn MacCumhaill when he threw these boulders from nearby Lusk." Most of the rest of the other stones were covered in ivy so we didn't find any more that had cup marks, but the ones that were most visible looked like solution pits, though it's hard for me to be categoric about that.
The stairs down into the well are are well-worked flagstones. As you descend, there is a bullaun in a recess on the right-hand side. This is a craggy old, shallow-basined example but is said to contain the cure (for warts, toothache, headache and disorders of the throat).
As we arrived at the well a robin fluttered out from the main chamber of the well-house. This well-house is quite crudely (in the most gentle sense) constructed. The walls are of boulders and support a large, flat capstone/flagstone. This has then been covered over with larger boulders giving the well-house a conical shape. The water had leaf and other detritus so I didn't fancy a taste.
This is a site well worth visiting, with relatively easy access and parking by the burial ground nearby. My instinct says that the construction around the spring of the well is not ancient in the TMA sense. However, there are two christian crosses here, carved into two separate stones and looking like a sly attempt to christianise the site. How will we ever find out its provenance? I guess the only way is through excavation, but the attendant folklore about Fionn, the supposed cup marks, and some of the methods of construction here leave one thinking of pre-christian possibilities.
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Kinda cheating here a bit as I didn't actually visit the site – visiting strictly by invitation only. Lambay is meant to be rich in neolithic heritage - the site of an axe factory. Love to go there some day.
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Now here's a thing: I couldn't get access to this as it's on the grounds of a chocolate factory! I was told by the security guard that I might get permission and be given a guided tour if I came back the following day, Monday.
Here's another thing: There is no mention of this in Tom Fourwind's book on prehistoric Dublin and I had never heard of it until reading Joseph E. Doyle's Ten Dozen Waters: The Rivers and Streams of County Dublin. Indeed, there it sits not 20 metres from the Santry river, just before it flows under the Malahide road. Doyle calls it a tumulus. It is mentioned on the Wikipedia page for the Santry river and it is on the archaeology.ie National Monuments database, number DU015-074-, added by Geraldine Stout no less.
So why isn't it more widely known? It's right there, less than a stone's (cough) throw from one of the busiest roads in the north suburbs.
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A solitary slab about 150 metres south-east below the wedge tomb. Is this the only surviving stone of a second wedge tomb? The Arch. Survey of Co. Donegal says that: "The 2nd and 3rd editions of the OS maps show two stones here but there is no visible trace of the second stone." So maybe... but if so, why would the destroyers leave just one (or two) stone(s) standing?
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Taxi-driving, graphic artist with a penchant for high hills and low boulders. Currently residing in Tallaght where I can escape to the wildernesses of Wicklow within 10 minutes.
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