Set just slightly south-west of the peak of a ridged hill this artificial mound is well worth checking out. From the top of the mound there are extensive views to the west, north-east to Saggart Hill and Slievethoul, Seefin, Seefingan and Seahan, east over the Wicklow mountains and Poulaphouca reservoir and south towards Carlow.
The main focus seem to be towards the west but that could be because the eastern views are partially blocked by the modern hedgerow. The mound rises to about 2 and a half metres. It's been dug out at the top. There is a lone stone embedded into the north side of the mound, a peculiarity that gets you wondering.
Access is easy up the public footpath from the Rathmore to Blessington road.
|
This massive cairn must have been quite something in its day. I can only estimate it at maybe 30 metres diameter. There are quite a few large kerbstones still in situ but it's almost impossible to get a good idea of what goes where. The south side of the cairn is now part of a field wall, much of which has been built using the cairn material itself.
South-west of the main cairn is a large bundle of field clearance and then what looks like a stone circle or a ring cairn. I wanted to stay a bit longer and explore but the farmer that owns the land was moving horses about and I didn't feel like intruding any more than I already had.
|
The tree-line that used to give you your bearings is gone, the trees are down, and there's an unholy mess to be traversed before you get to the circle. What wonder and joy when you get there though. The circle pulls you in, the views opened up all around. Keadeen is a monster brooding in the clouds to the east. Brusselstown hillfort dominates the north-west.
We had precious little time to drink in the rest of the views: we arrived 5 minutes before a bunch of worshippers took over the circle for their rituals. Were we pissed off? Not half mate!
|
I heard Christian Corlett mention this stone during a talk he had given on the rock art of South Leinster. Ken Williams had attended the talk and posted the recording on da web. I've been curious about the stone for a while, located as it is in the megalithically sparse south central Wicklow mountains. It's also a place where I spent quite a bit of time as a youngster and it was a great excuse to return to Glenmalure.
I ran a find on cup-marked stones in Wicklow on the archaeology.ie database and sure enough there it was! The placement on the map is bang on though the satellite map is quite a bit older than reality which was confusing at first. Using OS sheet 62, find the first forest track on your left after the sharp right turn coming up the road from Drumgoff. The stone is in the field above the end of this track, a little to the right and about 150 metres away.
There are hut sites and enclosures marked on the archaeology.ie map in the vicinity. These are hard to make out and there's supposed to be one about 10 metres from this stone. The stone itself is flush with the ground, slab-like, roughly a metre by 500cms. There is one main concentration of cup-marks towards the north-east of the stone. These are placed in more or less a straight line. There are about 10 other cups sacattered around the rock in various states of erosion.
I loved the area, Fananierin mountain to the north-east, the small valley created by it and Slieve Maan to the south-west, Drumgoff brook at its bottom feeding into the Avonbeg. The faint feeling that these cups might be natural solution pits faded as I strolled around in the sunshine, examining the hut-sites and enclosures.
|
There are 4 bullaun stones in the vicinity of the Moone High Cross Inn that I could find (there may be more), 3 singles and a double. We'd stopped here for a spot of lunch and when I spotted the rough-hewn boulder outside the bar I thought; it couldn't be - a bullaun stone being used as an ashtray!
On further investigation I encountered the other three around the pub amongst various modern stone circles and follies. I asked the landlady where the bullauns had come from and she said that her husband had dug them out of a wall under the road outside the inn.
These are not on archaeology.ie and I've never come across any mention of them elsewhere. Strange.
|
This is not the most accessible site I've been to. I won't go into the details of how I eventually got here but I can say that all my efforts were very worthwhile.
I was completely taken aback by the size of the monument. The photos I've seen of it elsewhere don't show its scale. I guess I hadn't really thought about the fact that this is a grave and that the cist would need to be big enough at least to hold an adult human body. The turned over capstone is 2 meteres long on its flat side.
This site is marked as a barrow on the OS maps. On archaeology.ie it's marked as a cist with a barrow right beside it. I believe that the barrow and this cist are one and the same. There are remains of the mound still surviving.
I loved the views from up here across the Dublin plain. Once again Howth is prominent over to the north-east.
|
Marked as a Ringfort (unclassified) on archaeology.ie, this is the nearest monument to my house. I've been pondering heading up there for a while now and finally went this morning.
The 2nd left turn after Bohernabreena catholic church leaves you on a road above the field with the 'ringfort'. Down through two small fields and through the tangle of briars and gorse (I wouldn't attempt this outside of the winter months), the archaeology.ie placement is fairly accurate.
In his book Glenasmole Roads, Patrick Healy has this to say: "Four hundred yards to the east of Bohernabreena House is a fine ring fort in a field of furze with a spring of water beside it. It is 30 yards in diameter and surrounded by a bank. The area inside is levelled and bears evidence of having been tilled at some distant period." The photo used in the book is nondescript and shows the top of field, not the 'ringfort' as captioned.
So what is this? I would describe it as an embanked enclosure of the mini-henge type. The banks rise to about a metre from the north-east back around to the north-west. The northern part of the circle is open and falls away to a depth of about 2 metres, where lies the aforesaid 'spring'. The most striking thing about the site is the view across the city towards Howth and Lambay. Was it a ceremonial enclosure, a place to view some solar or lunar event? The interior of the circle is flattened but slopes from south to north and there's another gap/opening in the bank on the eastern edge where the views towards Howth would have been best.
Was it a habitation site, a so-called ringfort? Maybe, maybe not.
|
A ruined wedge tomb, but a classic of its type. These squat tombs always remind me of some futuristic tank crawling across the landscape. I'd been up at the court tomb and the cashel and felt up for a further little trek down to what's call a 'giant's grave' on the old OS maps at archaeology.ie.
Approaching the tomb from above it's hard not to be disappointed as it's a tangled mess of brambles and briers that you see at first. However, there's quite a bit of the structure left. The two 'portal' stones are massive and there's some evidence of the double kerbing at the back of the tomb. Standing a little to the north-west of the tomb you get a really good idea of where they came up with the name for this classification of Irish tomb, its wedge shape revealed as the tomb gradually tapers back towards the chamber.
The surrounding terrain in these fields west of Magheraghanrush Deerpark show plenty of signs of earth working and quarrying that seem to have been undertaken by the people who first constructed the court tomb, then the wedge tomb and the cashel.
|
|
South-east of the court tomb and north-west of the wedge tomb, about equidistant from both, this site is on private land. There's a style in the wall that leads down to it. It's quite a wonderful place, perched above Colgagh Lough and with views west across to Knocknarea. I could imagine this site as a prized and well defended homestead. The souterrain has been uncovered and it's wonderful to see the passage snake down into a corballed chamber. The cashel is very ruinous but is one of those places that tugs at your heart, steeped as it is in the mysteries of pre-history.
|
There's a track marked on the map that runs north from the road that skirts the south of Slievecorragh. I headed along here past the 1st old farm building until I reached the 2nd ruined farmstead. The bullaun is in the marshy field to the west of this. I spent about 20 minutes scouring this field in increasing frustration and headed down to the rath for a look.
The rath is fascinating, with the deepest fosse I've yet seen on one of these. It's easy to explore at this time of year but would be impossible in the summer months. The inventory says that there's no sign of an entrance, but they visited in August and I saw a clear entrance in the north-east quadrant.
Heading back into the bullaun field I noticed a cluster of boulders beside a massive gorse bush. The bullaun is here, almost flush with the ground. It's a little over a metre squared and the basin is one of the smallest I've seen, placed centrally in the stone. The sides are sheer, carved directly down into the flat-topped boulder to a depth of about 15 cms.
|
My fifth visit to this site and the first time there hasn't been livestock in the field, so giving me a bit of time here.
Site L, the one nearer the main mound, is almost totally destroyed. Four stones remain, a kerbstone and 3 chamber orthostats. None of the passage is remaining, or could it be that it is buried?
Site K is more interesting. Much of the passage is here. There seems to be a sillstone or doorstone at the mouth of the passage. Some of the passage orthostats are collapsed in on their opposite stones. Overall length is approx 15 metres, with a slight widening about midway along. It terminates in an undifferentiated chamber, the backstone of which is missing. The kerb is best preserved on the north-western arc, but there are some stones to the north. One puzzling factor is that an imagined continuation of the kerb arc would not meet the mouth of the passage but hit the 3rd or 4th stone along. Don't really know if this is significant.
The hillock that both tombs sit on is higher that any of the surrounding terrain, including the ground level of the main mound at Newgrange. Trees and shrubs block this feature when viewed from the road in front of Newgrange. Looking north-west, the main mound at Knowth can be seen in the distance.
It was very windy here today and my hands were freezing as I took photos. It would be lovely to sit here on a sunny summer's day, drinking in the atmosphere. It's hard to say what sense of place you get here, knowing that big brother is only yards away. None of the previously mentioned decorated stones were visible, though some of the passage stones seem to have very worn and vague pick-marks.
|
Nobberbeg townland, next (unfortunately) to Muff townland, is at the back of Gallow's Hill, north-west of Nobber (An Obair) town in north Meath. On the old OS maps at archaeology.ie this site is marked as St. Patrick's stone. The site sits at the edge of a ridge that falls away to its south.
There is an old cross base here, beside which sits this interesting bullaun. It's one of those kneeling bullauns, both basins of which break the side of the stone. One holds water in its bottom, the other unable to do so. On the map mentioned above there is a second bullaun marked. I think I saw this too but it's been smashed up, much like this unkempt and uncared for site.
|
This is well worth checking out, if only because there are many different sites of archaeological interest in close proximity.
I came here with the bullaun in mind, having seen it on archaeology.ie. It's about a metre and a half long by half a metre wide and has one shallow basin. It's now cemented into the side of a shrine to St. Brigid which in turn sits beside a dry holy well.
I had a delightful companion during my time here – a gorgeous little puppy that followed me down from the house where I attempted to ask for permission to visit the well.
|
A huge barrow in the grounds of Punchestown race-course, it's close on 30 metres in diameter. The central mound is quite low but may have been taller in the past as the ditch and bank are of such a large size, the top of the bank being close on 3 metres above the bottom of the ditch in places in the northern arc of the barrow.
Punchestown race-course is popular with dog-walkers and access is through the gate-style at the entrance, opposite the field with the race-course standing stone. I arrived here late in the January evening and there were quite a few people about, but none in the vicinity of this forgotten monument. This could be a showcase part of the grounds with a little bit of tidying, but like so much of our ancient heritage, is now willfully neglected and overgrown.
|
We headed up from the road at the south-eastern end of Brusselstown. 100 metres into the field are the remains of the outer ramparts of the huge Spinnan's Hill/Brusselstown complex. The Arch. Inventory of Co. Wicklow shows a line about 5 kilometres in circumference surrounding the two peaks and their respective hillforts. This line of rubble, at this point, is very low, less than a metre in height but with some larger stones standing proud of the remains. It's hard to make out from here how much of the rest of the outer ramparts remain, and even from above it remains difficult to do so.
We headed up and entered the fort. What looks like chevaux de frise is in fact the old fortification of the hillfort. The landowners have built their field boundaries from this, and at this section in the south-east the wall is inside the ramparts. At the western end the field boundaries twist snakelike over the ramparts and are both inside and outside the old fortifications.
The interior of the fort has 3 large natural outcrop pinnacles. All 3 of these look to have been quarried and all 3 also seem to have been superb lookout points. There are many places showing the remains of structures, but none that we could find make any sort of layout sense.
It was very windy here today and we arrived about 2 hours before the expected rain. We could make out Lugnaquilla and had a commanding view of the whole of the Glen of Imaal. Keadeen to the east looks worshipful, towering above the hillfort and dominating the atmosphere. Spinnan's Hill, Brusselstown's twin hillfort, is now covered by forestry, but may be worth a look sometime soon.
|
There's just a thin strip of trees surrounding the circle now. The cleared area to the north is well re-planted and the young pines are about a foot high. I looked down on Boleycarrigeen from Brusselstown hillfort today and wondered why they haven't cleared the trees from around the circle. They're of the same vintage as those already cleared. Some of the trees east of the circle in mulchy ground have fallen during the recent storms.
The very dead bracken around the stones took us about 5 minutes to flatten. The bank around the circle is easy to see at this time. The quietness here always brings peace to the soul an we had our lunch just outside the circle. Boleycarrigeen remains, huddled snugly in its small copse, waiting to be revealed by the tree-fellers. Let's hope they're very careful if and when they do decide to clear here.
|
We started our jaunt from the place where the Wicklow Way crosses the Tibradden to Glencullen road. It's about a 200 metre ascent along a 2 kilometre walk. The first part is quite steep but gets gentler as you move away from the forestry and head east-north-east along the ridge.
This passage grave has been calling me for quite some time. I've eyeballed it from all over the city since reading about it here and elsewhere and thought – I have to head up there. The mound is still quite intact but is being eroded at a rapid pace what with all the hill-walkers and day-trippers. There's no trace of a kerb and the supposed passage could just be an indentation left by continuous erosion.
The views from here are some of the best I've seen. The bay looks better here than from any place I've visited, its jaws gulping their way out into the Irish sea. Almost directly north Lambay is visible and it's said that you can see the Cooleys and the Mournes on a clear day, though not today, 6/1/08.
|
A multi-faceted, multi-period site, this is easy to find at the side of the road at Shirke Crossroads. According to the Arch. Inventory of Co. Laois there are a henge, a standing stone within the henge, a norman motte and bailey within the henge, a mound that could be a barrow, 4 fulachtaí fiadh, a possible megalithic structure and several urn burials.
The standing stone within the henge is a conglomerate, rising to above 2 metres. The henge itself is very impressive, with an outside ditch and massive banks, 96 metres E–W and 90 metres N–S in diameter.
There were many thrown down stones on the western side of the monument, any of which could be the remains of the 'cromleach' that Ledwich described in 1803.
The whole of the site is terribly overgrown and could do with a clean-up. Walking north to the church I was struck with the views from this prominence – the Slieve Bloom mountains dominate the northern horizon.
|
These were a nice surprise! I had about an hour to kill before lunch at a friend's nearby and decided to check out the ruins of the church and cross. There's a holy well marked on the map beside the church and looking at the field that the well is in I noticed 2 stones that had been left behind from a fairly thorough field clearance. Why? Well, because they're bullaun stones.
One, the smaller of the two, has 2 fairly regular-sized basins, the other, a large conical beast has just the one, massive and carved into the slope of the stone. A pleasant surprise on the 2nd last day of December '07.
|
|
There's a track on the map that runs south-east from the road across the saddle between Verschoyles hill and Knockannavea up into the forestry on Knockannavea. South of the track is this supposed barrow cemetery. I searched the vicinity and found some vague remains. It seems that these barrows have long since been ploughed away, a pity really as the site itself is quite beautiful.
|
|
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.
|
Log in |
Register
Previous 20 | Showing 21-40 of 155 fieldnotes. Most recent first | Next 20 
Top of page