I’ve been in this area before so many times and not got to the tomb that I was almost ready to give up yet again. We’d met a couple of local farmers in one of the adjacent fields but they had misunderstood us and directed us to the owner of the field that contains a large rath. Actually, I knew where the tomb is and knew how to get to it, but was too intimidated by the large farmyard and its occupants to ask. Not my buddy Thomas, good country lad that he is.
“Sure why would I stop ye?” asked the lady at the house, “Off ye go.” So off we set, through the farmyard and up the track and over a farm gate and into the field.
I knew it was ruined but I didn’t expect there to be as much left as there actually is. The mound is placed at the top of a hillock and to the east side of a pasture field. The Rock of Curry dominates the north-western skyline. Views to the east are blocked by a fence and hedging, otherwise the views all around are clear. It’s aligned NNE-SSW with the entrance at the SSW. The slope of the mound is very pronounced towards the western section.
Two stones remain of the outer walling on the eastern side and there may be some chamber orthostats but they are covered by what seem to be displaced roofstones and a summer’s worth of nettles. There were various other stones around the chamber but I couldn’t really inspect them as I was too tired for a nettle war.
The main sense I got here was, not unusually, puzzlement – if you’re going to wreck a tomb and use the stones elsewhere, why leave what’s left? Why not destroy it altogether? I guess the answer to that will remain unknown and I should be glad that the tomb wreckers left what they did. And, in the end, I am.
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Posted by ryaner
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