Coorleigh South 1
Image by gjrk
Coorleigh South

Is this art?

I know a bit about boulder burials, 'cause I thought I'd found one and went looking for someone to confirm it. They all ran away, of course, as they do. I was at a weekend conference (once) and approached someone and said 'I think I've found a boulder burial' and reached for the bunch of photographs in my inside pocket. Fatal mistake. The person said something like - oh, you should speak to him, there, it was he that first described boulder burials. Billy ? - the copper mining guy from Ireland. He didn't want to know, really. And my pictures could have been of anything really. 3 x 2 flag covered in very eroded cupmarks set into a hillslope, with little verticals to support it. Like a tiny cromlech - it's still there...

Stoneshifter wrote:
The person said something like - oh, you should speak to him, there, it was he that first described boulder burials. Billy ? - the copper mining guy from Ireland.
Sean O' Nuallain ? He suggested the copper connection . Same thing was applied to rock art at one time . As the boulder burials are in a pretty well defined smallish area it might be difficult to argue against coincidence but it does seem a possibility particularly when you consider there are plenty areas with copper and no boulder burials .

Sean O'Nuallain would have been the main man originally here but you must have met William O'Brien. He did a great report on his excavations at Cooradarrigan/Ballycommane, some distance west of here. If I could presume to guess the reason for his response, perhaps your cromlech was a bit out of his local area?