Broomfields

Nearest town:
Baltinglass (10km SSW)
OS reference:
S903983
OS sheet:
55
Latitude:
53° 1' 40.1 N
Longitude:
6° 39' 14.27 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Broomfields (Chambered Tomb) by ryaner

One of the chamber stones from the track to the east.

Image credit: ryaner
ryaner
ryaner Oct 4, 2016
Image of Broomfields (Chambered Tomb) by ryaner

The horribly overgrown Broomfields portal tomb – compare this with the first shot here by Megaman.

Image credit: ryaner
ryaner
ryaner Jun 4, 2014
Image of Broomfields (Chambered Tomb) by ryaner

Most of the structure of the collapsed tomb is still here.

Image credit: ryaner
ryaner
ryaner May 24, 2009

Articles

Broomfields

ryaner
ryaner Jun 24, 2014

Poor old Broomfields portal tomb – ruined, neglected, overgrown and overlooked. The capstone has fallen and leans over the chamber, on top of one of the portals. The other portal is still upright and there’s a backstone standing, but you’d never tell in the summer as the whole thing is more or less hidden under the vegetation. It’s incorporated in a boundary fence down a well laid farm track, but access is better from the field to the west where you can at least appreciate the quite massive capstone. If you’re looking for atmosphere however, you probably won’t get it here – there’s so very little to be seen amidst the tangle of vegetation and now there’s even trees growing between the stones. Some remedial work is desperately needed at this sad site. I’d be up for it if given permission.

Folklore

Broomfields
Chambered Tomb
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Feb 27, 2010

Broomfield Dolmen.
[...] The cover stone and supporting pillars are all of granite and are of massive proportions. It is still an imposing spectacle and must have appeared much more so when each stone held its proper position. Mrs. O’Reilly, whose father died some two years ago at a very advanced age, told me that she often heard him relate how three strong men from the old mill (near Donard) pushed the cover stone off its supports for a wager.

[...] Locally this monument is known as a “Druid’s altar,” though some believe it to be a sepulchral monument. (The belief that it was a Druid’s altar is supported by a remark made to me by a Donard resident, when I was speaking to him about this monument. The late Colonel Heighington told him that a story was once current in Donard that a religious fanatic, who had a strong antipathy to Pagan antiquities, got the cover stone thrown off its supports, thus accomplishing his one great desire, the destruction of existing remnants of pre-Christian religion.)

From ‘The Antiquities of the Dunlavin-Donard District (Counties of Wicklow and Kildare)’ by Patrick T. Walshe, in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 7th series, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Dec. 31, 1931).

Sites within 20km of Broomfields

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