Thomastown

Nearest town:
Oldcastle (7km WNW)
OS reference:
N6090975865
OS sheet:
42
Latitude:
53° 43' 43.88 N
Longitude:
7° 4' 37.38 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Thomastown (Passage Grave) by ryaner

The ‘passage’ looking towards Carnbane East and Cairn T in the distance.

Image credit: ryaner
ryaner
ryaner Feb 20, 2018
Image of Thomastown (Passage Grave) by ryaner

The good, northern, side of the mound, really looking like a small hillock or drumlin from here.

Image credit: ryaner
ryaner
ryaner Feb 20, 2018
Image of Thomastown (Passage Grave) by ryaner

The top of the mound. There is evidence here that the mound is man-made, the light soil covering what appears to be classic cairn rubble.

Image credit: ryaner
ryaner
ryaner Feb 20, 2018
Image of Thomastown (Passage Grave) by ryaner

A quarter of the mound seems to have been chopped out, revealing the chamber of an undifferentiated passage grave, but I’m not convinced given there were no signs whatsoever of a kerb.

Image credit: ryaner
ryaner
ryaner Feb 20, 2018

Articles

Thomastown

ryaner
ryaner Feb 17, 2018

If this is what they say it is – the remains of a passage grave – then it is of the undifferentiated variety, and diminutive at that.

From the very small road and over the fence, south about 150 metres into the field and very visible is a hillock, about 3 to 4 metres tall. This is very possibly man-made. Exploring around it’s top there seems to be cairn rubble remaining. Maybe, when the excavators realised that they had disturbed an ancient grave, they had second thoughts and stopped their handiwork. But not before they had scooped out a sizable chunk of the southern side of the mound, revealing the chamberless passage.

What’s left of this speculative passage are about 12 stones, most in an alignment onto cairn T in Loughcrew, with the most south-easterly pair forming an ‘entrance’. Alas, were this an entrance, the alignment of the tomb would face away from Cairn T which would be behind the tomb to the north-west. So quaint theories may be just that, quaint but wholly incorrect.

All of the tombs on the hills of Loughcrew either align with other tombs to the east, or with the equinox sunrise in the east, so this ones orientation doesn’t exclude the possibility that this is a Loughcrew outlier, along with the mound at Bobsville graveyard with its megalithic art another kilometre to the south.

Sites within 20km of Thomastown

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