If they are fakes, they are good ones. Whoever built them knew a thing or two.

There are rows that terminate in a perpendicular flag - a configuration not found elsewhere in Ireland, but common on the moors of southeast England.

There are a few four-poster arrangements in the northern part, which have the correct arrangement of stone heights.

There is the huge circle - but this is on a steep slope.

It's an odd old place, alright.

The famine and land clearances certianly could account for the lack of lore. Remember, noone living around Tara recalled any of its folklore in 1837. It was O'Donovan that realised it was actually the Tara from the Annals when he did the Ordnance Survey work in that year by matching the monuments to the written record, not through recounted stories.

If you can lose the lore for Tara from local knowledge, you can lose anything!