Latest Fieldnotes

A full moon brought me back to Clontygora, hoping to get a better picture of the moon between the superbly shaped court stones than last year (cianmcliam.smugmug.com/gallery/345408/1/13728798/Large) but I only confirmed what I thought already, its impossible to get a nice detailed moon shot by time its moved into the right position because the rest of the image is black, needs to be done during the late evening when the sky is still fairly bright.

Another dissapointment was the discovery that a HUGE new barn/workshop type thing has been built right across the road and is impossible to ignore while here.

Nevertheless, Clontygora is still a great place to be and hats off to whoever keeps the grass so neat. Of all the sites I’ve been to though, this place has the highest concentration of dog-dirt I’ve ever come across, even in the chamber. Be careful where you tread!

This is a really lovely site. And its in my home village as well. At the top of the hill of Portroe past the school and garda station there is a hard to see lane on the left (On the way to Ballina). U can park in front of the lane and follow the path as per the OS map most of the way. If u hear some dogs barking you are in the right place!
You pass by the water reservior for the area and can see the stones clearly from the top of the hill. The best way to get down to them is by going to the right of the sillage/farm buildings where there is a gap. All electric fences in the area are live so be careful.
It really says a lot about the treatment of history in this country when I went to primary school less than 1km away and yet we were never taken there. In fact if it wasnt for the archaeological inventory of North Tipp I would never have heard of them because they are not even marked on the OS map being described as barrows.

Situated on a low platform in an upland area with a bowl barrow c.50m to NW. Two limestone orthosats, aligned E-W, and 9,5m apart. Both stones are triangular in shape with the tops of the stones sloping from N to S. The E stone is erect (H2.1m; 1.1m x0.9m) while the W stone(h1.5m;0.6m x 1.1m)has fallen and is resting on its packing stones. Extract from Archaeological Inventory of North Tipp

The path to this barrow is signposted ‘No access to Tenantry Farm’. Follow the path for about 250yds and a bridleway crosses from one narrow copse to another. Keep straight on and in the field on the left behind a narrow copse the barrow is about 100yrds further on. There is a break in the trees and access to the field. The barrow is all but ploughed out and only barely visible. Crops were growing on the barrow and track marks driven straight over so this barrow is not much longer for this world.

This barrow is well presented now despite its obvious previous mutilation. Parking is tempting in the Martin Social club but unfriendly signs made us park on the verge instead. At the end of the lane next to Long Barrow House the barrow is neatly fenced off and seemingly protected. The damage has already been done though and it now has a strange crescent shape. The roots of some old trees almost give the impression of sarsens and it feels a bit like some of the Dorset stones sites such as Hell Stone or Grey Mare & Her Colts. Weird. Nice situ though with good views.

Visited this site whilst on a quick tour round the Rockbourne/Martin Long Barrows. Its access hasn’t improved since jimit’s notes. I ended up pushing my way through the brambles/ivy and found the barrow itself very ill defined. There were some very barky dogs on Tenantry Farm but they ran away as we walked passed.

This barrow in Martin is a stones throw from Grans Barrow in Rockbourne and accessible from the same path (opposite Tenantry Farm /Riding School. The edge of the barrow is very much defined by the path and as such doesn’t seem as well defined as Grans Barrow that still maintains its own definition between the fields. Both are somewhat spoiled by the proximity of the overhead power cables. Interesting to speculate on the settlement implications for the siting of two barrows so close. Were they two close communities or were they defining their territory at their extremities. The Ducks Nest Barrow is the other way from the road up the bridleway opposite (not into Tenantry Farm)

The North Tipp Archaeological inventory says that is know locally as the “Tomb Stone of the King of Leinster”. Well as a local its news to me! It also says that it reckons that it is a natural feature. It is located about 1/2 km from the graves of the leinstermen just by the side of the road.

This megalith is at the end of a farm track. So it isnt that hard to find really just follow the path as indicated on the OS map. Coming from Moneygall to Cloughjordan it is up a road on the left. The road rises here over a hill. The lane itself is on the right hand side and has a gate on it and leads into a farm yard. It is beside a timber house and the next house up is a very big house that i think the farm belongs to. At the very end of the lane is a farm building and the tomb is in a field to the right of it. Only got the two pictures and had a look at it for a couple of seconds because some very hungry sounding bullocks started to chase me. I dont know if Indiania Jones was ever chased by bullocks! The capstone itself is big and quiet impressive like i said about 3m x 1.5m. It seems to be on a little raised mound in the field. Definitely worth a second look when the ground is dryer.

Talking of excuses to come back another day.... we lasted about a week ;)

This time we were on a mission: to find a particular design we had seen images of (but we’ll save descriptions for when we actually find it!)

Where to start? We lifted a random bit of turf to find a tell-tale ring and 3.5 hours later had the whole panel lifted and photographed.

The design left me confused as to the true intentions of the carver (more than normal I mean)... Panels usually appear to have set modes and feelings but this panel felt very sketchy – not only because some markings were faint and unfinished, but because there seemed to be such a mixture of styles and motifs.

HUGE basins next to small pecked cups next to lines linked to shallow rings enclosing another ring of cups, when it’s more usually rings around cups?!? So on and on.... some overlapping as if carved by different individuals with no consideration for the previous artists.

Rock art rule number 67 – there are no rules!!!

The site can be approached by the track to the right of Fernbank on the road to Holm. On my second visit I saw that the barred wooden gate merely lay across the fence, ingress lies by a middling height ‘Orkney gate’. They’re making these things taller and tighter but I got by just moving the top a little. Didn’t want to lay the thing down in case it became tangled – if you do the same take into account the barbwire around the fencepost (I wondered what the scratching noise was !). The closest I could approach from this field was the mounds’ field boundary, there will be a way in but it looks as if that would involve a lot of ‘going around the houses’ as I can see no convenient trackway (from the main road leastways).

I was intrigued by the amount of stone protruding from the ground in various alignments as I traversed the wide trackway. Fortunately the site is very close to the fieldfence. This runs at 35 degrees west of north. From here the view runs from mound 5 in the RCAHM’s 1946 inventory at the extreme left to the barely perceptible mound 3 at the right. The individual item that first strikes one is where a large area of stones is exposed. Nearer to there is a layer of what appears to be dark earth above the stones. But though the site in general bears a resemblance to the Grimsquoy mound/s near the airport by the Sands of Wideford, which has been call a burnt mound, it is too great a distance from the Rashieburn itself to be one. However of more obvious importance is something that the last archaeological report did not mention so must have been exposed since then. In a mound to the left of the one just mentioned is a very short length of drystane-walling two stones long and four or so courses high. A few metres to the right, apparently in another mound from my limited perspective, there is another stone at the level of the upper course. Perhaps a continuation. As with Grimsquoy one has to wonder what the number of mounds was originally, have there been additions to a lesser number or a sub-division of such?

Not the most spectacular of sites, but a welcoming one nonetheless.

Spent a pleasant lunch hour here, and although ruined, enough remains to give you a sense of what was. As ever, its all about the view.

Plenty of fallen stone in the long grass & hedge to keep you guessing, and what appears to be an outlier to the NW in the direction of the farm house. Although with my eyesight, and the crappy camera I was using from work, it may be a a tree stump or gatepost!

Easy parking, just off some quiet (although fast) lanes, and in most maps.

After a child friendly visit during the day, we went back in the dark, with a big lamp, to see if side-lighting would pick out the putative cup mark on the central stone (See Kammer’s photo). Unfortunately, no joy, the photos were blurry and filled with noise.

In retrospect, it was easier to see the possible cupmark in daylight. It’s definitely a small circular depression, but is it natural or man made? Without other examples of cup marks in gneiss to use as points of reference, I think it’s impossible to say one way or the other. A close study of the occurance of similar features may indicate statistical corellation, but even then I supppose that’s not proof of artificial origin.

Stone circles are extra-wonderful places when experienced in the dark. Both here and Avebury give out a totally diffferent type of somethingness when visited at night compared to that which they give out during the day.

August 2006

Summertime again, but this time low overcast, terrible light for viewing rock art. Headed home before it got properly dark, precluding fancy photos.

Still enjoyed it though. Made the acquiaintance of a couple of supremely weird looking Germanic fellas, who had visited not to see the rock carvings per se, but because they had been told that from this spot, the whirlpool of Coryvreckan could be seen. This ties in with thoughts of spiral motifs both here and at Templewood. For apparently Coryvreckan is a formidable natural feature, maybe worthy of note back in the days of rock carving and circle building.

August 2005

Summertime, clear sky, late evening, just before the sun hits the horizon, midge central, but the light hits at the perfect angle, and no-one else there. Lovely.

If you ain’t into climbing over the railings, the camera-onna-stick method of monopod assisted photography can get some nice closeups. I was interested in some motifs which looked like they’d been ‘had at’ in ancient times. As if their meaning or creator had become unwanted, resulting in the deliberate and public desecration (if that’s an applicable word?) of the carvings.

As far as I’m concerned, Achnabreck lived up to the hype.

(But it still dunt beat Ketley Crag for sheer CnR loveliness!)

Leaning beside a wall just off the military road that runs along the coast at Whitsand bay is this former gatepost. I have to call it that because of the fact that it still has the rusty hinges embedded in it. But it is alone... I could find no other granite gateposts in the area during a two hour walk. The stone is long and slender and stands very near to a field called barrow Field. This is supposed to be the site of the Treninnow Stone Monument (see other posting). Could this stone have been part of the monument?

Visited here on Friday 28th October, and unable to locate any stone in the field. However, a small stone very much like the one in the photo was seen on a pile of rubble just through the gateway to the East of this field. Oh dear.

You can see this rock outcrop very clearly while on the Portlaoise bypass (M7). The best way up to it is to turn off for the Heath (commons) and then pretty much follow the direction of the castle all the way. There is a car-park below the rock. Really amazing place you can feel the history.

Dun Masc’ or the fort of Masc, as it was known by the Celts, is one of the most historic sites in Ireland. It’s ruins date back thousands of years. Dunamase was even known to Ptolemy, who called it Dunnum and named it in his famous map of the world in The 2nd Century. The Rock stands 150 feet tall in the heart of what is otherwise a flat plain, and was ideal as a defensive position with its veiw right up to the Slieve Bloom Mountains. Pre-Celtic Bronze age settlers were the first to fortify it, followed by the Celts themselves. Among them was King Laois Mor, who gave his name to the country. The Vikings Plundered it in 845, and in the 13th century was given to Strongbow the Norman as a gift from his new son-in-law, Diarmiud Mac Murrough. It is Mac Murroughs castle which lies in ruin atop the rock today. The Castle went through some major changes of ownership over the years after this. Through Bargaining and back-stabbing (most likely in a very literal sence) it passed through the hands of Strongbow to the Anglo-Norman Mortimer family, and from them to the decendents of Laois Ceann Moore. The O’Moores, who used it as a staging point from which to make the Normans lives a living hadies.The O’Moores renovated the Mac Murroughs castle quite extensively in the 15th century, and they sucessfully defended it for over a century until the arival of the planters, who displaced the O’Moores and exiled them to Kerry along with the Fitspatricks, the O’Dempseys and the O’Dunnes in 1607. Finnaly, Oliver “the butcher” Cromwell saked the castle in 1650. One can still see the trenches where his troops were based. A Beloved Family pet still roams the ruins of the Rock. An unearthly, fire-breathing Black hound by the name of Bandog. Legend says he guards treasure buried deep inside Dunamase.

Retrieved from “en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_of_Dunamase”

Even when it’s windy, the walls are high enough to make a nice relaxed picnic quite possible.

This is such a wonderfully secluded and cozy valley, well worth the scary drive up the unfeasibly twisty-steep road to get here. It’s a bit easier from Skye, via a slightly less twisty road, and with the added advantage of the spinning ferry.

Disabled access
Not good for wheelchairs, the incline is steep and uneven. It’s close to the road though, about 20 yards, so quite visitable by those who can’t easily walk far.

Situated on a N-facing slope of high ground overlooking a valley to the N with a nearby stream to the E in a mountainous area. A circular area (diam. 12.5m) enclosed by eleven orthostats ranging in height from 0.15m to 2m with several prostrate stones around the perimeter of the circle. A large, flat, recumbent stone lies in centre of circle. (O Nuallain 1987, 142-4)

This stone has been removed during field clearance and is no longer there. May be worth talking to the farmer and finding out its desciption etc.

Standing Stone pair (possible)
Situated on a rise of ground in an upland area in forest plantation with a nearby stone circle to N and stone row to E. A tall rectangular stone (H 1.42m; dims. 1m x 0.52m) with a large recumbent stone immediately to SW aligned on a NE-SW axis. The second stone was knocked during forest plantation.

To get to this stone its in the middle of a foresty plantation but they seem to have left access to it. This area has the reputation for illegal activities so people could be suspicious of you loitering in the area.
You follow the foresty track shown on the OS map and keep to the track to the left at the Y in the road.
Then there is an unmarked track on the left which you follow up the hill until it stops. Keep going up to the top of the hill through the undergrowth and there is the stone.
Its location gives great views of all the hills around and you can also see the nearby stone row.

St.Nons – LLandruidion, has an enormously prehistoric and historic background. Its timelessness sinks into the soul, never mind that it is a Catholic retreat now, it wears its past well. The little St. Non’s chapel (which I can’t put on this site because it happened in the wrong time) sits in a field with the odd stone or two jutting through. It is said that there is a neolithic stone circle that surrounds the ruined church – not so sure about that. It is recorded in the landscape archaeological record that apart from the possible stone circle, there is one scheduled standing stone and a possible 5 more, plus 4 barrows within the area.
The old stone, with the added boulder, sits in an adjacent field. The farmer has obviously been removing boulders from this field, for there is a pile in the corner. Have visited this site before so always knew it as a singular stone. Won’t say anything, but if in years to come the boulder stone loses it red colouring, it still won’t be a prehistoric stone....

Note; taken from “Celtic Saints in their Landscape” Elizabeth Rees.

“There is a giant boulder, part of a Bronze Age stone circle within which Non’s chapel was built” The story goes that Non gave birth to David within the stone circle, and that whilst a great storm raged outside, within the circle it was calm and sunny.. Be that as it may, she shows a photo of the stone that is in the foreground of the chapel, the stone facing out to sea.

Poulnabrone may be another victim of the ‘pop megalithic’ syndrome wherby its immense popularity, ease of access, enormity of photographs and visitors means that it is so often belittled and dismissed. Probably the same phenomenon that causes an underground band to become instantly unpopular as soon as they get mainstream attention. Poulnabrone is a masterpiece of its kind, the design and engineering are superlative and if it were not for the rope surrounding it would be perfect. If this was discovered today or even if it were located miles from the nearest track it would get the proper respect and admiration it deserves. Get here very early or very late to avoid the embarrasingly uninformed tour guides and uninterested tour guests.

Wow what a site, I only live a couple of miles from here and although I had heard of it, all I had seen before this was a crappy picture that didnt really get you very excited.
This is just off the nenagh – ardcroney road. Turn left after Ashley Park B&B then its the next left which is a cul de sac/lane thats quite difficult to spot. When u get right to the mound it helpfully has a sign pointing to it saying Neolithic mound!
The mound itself is very impressive and sits beside a little hill to one side. It has extensive views of all the major hills in the area.
However the little hill beside the mound obstructs its view to the ‘Devils Bit’ mountain which seems kinda strange as no doubt an unusual natural feature such as this would have had some significance within the local landscape.
There is a lake in Ashley Park estate only approx 500m away.

Found out about this site from a local farmer who called it the ‘Druids Altar’. I decided to have a look at it because its in an area called Carney and this townland is called Whitstone, so really sounds like cairn country. Didnt investigate up close because of cows in the field. The farmer assures me that the lane adjacent to the site is ok to go up and that the farmers that own the land are ok with people looking at it.
He also told me that there were oak trees growing in it but they were cut down. He also mentioned that there was another druids altar in the area solely made up of oak trees but that too was cut down. Thanks to Tim Heanen for the information.

Cairn
Taken from the North Tipp Archaeological Inventory.
“Situated on top of the Mauherslieve Mountain with extensive views. Described in the OS Name books (1840) as a large heap of whitish stones on the summit... Under which it is said there is a cave or cellar in which a great number of the neighbouring people took refuge in the time of the rebellion... it is not known when this cave was made in the mountain... the entrance to into it cannot be seen as it is covered over with the large stones above mentioned .”