Sites within Dun Ruadh

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Images

Image of Dun Ruadh (Stone Circle) by ryaner

Looking down westwards on Dún Ruadh – the ring cairn is surrounded by an outer embankment that is partially visible here.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Dun Ruadh (Stone Circle) by ryaner

Looking east towards the low summit of Crockneyneill Hill.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Dun Ruadh (Stone Circle) by ryaner

Gorse is being allowed to colonise the ‘opening’ – kinda detracting from the place. Leave the fairy tree, but get rid of the gorse, please.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Dun Ruadh (Stone Circle) by ryaner

I’m guessing that this is two conjoined cists, separated by the stone right of centre.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Dun Ruadh (Stone Circle) by ryaner

A reputed 13 cists were found in the ring cairn.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Dun Ruadh (Stone Circle) by ryaner

Approaching Dún Ruadh from the west. The outer embankment is clearly visible to the left.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Dun Ruadh (Stone Circle) by GLADMAN

An exquisite, unique site in the Sperrin foothills. Thanks, Brendan......

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image of Dun Ruadh (Stone Circle) by caealun

Simply a perfect place – and very complex. 13 cists, a henge, a stone circle and a ditch.

Image credit: Derfel
Image of Dun Ruadh (Stone Circle) by caealun

Simply AMAZING. Quiet and unmolested. A perfect place.

Image credit: Derfel

Articles

Dun Ruadh

Sometimes when we head out we aim big from the get go. We’d been in Tyrone and Derry a few times this year and there was a seriously glaring omission. Ten or so years ago I’d made a fairly feeble attempt at Dun Ruadh and had been thinking about it since, kind of saving it for some sort of epiphanic occasion from deep within my imagination.

We parked at the old, abandoned schoolhouse at the bottom of the farm lane. Turns out this was built ‘of stones looted from the cairn’ in 1877. There was, what we thought to be, a dead sheep lying in the small courtyard at the front of the building. Creepy. We headed up to the farmhouse and knocked looking for permission. Nothing doing, no-one in, except the dogs in the yard. Well, here we are, and Dun Ruadh is just up there, a couple of gates and fences away. So here we go, spending some time at the small chamber on the way.

The territory is reclaimed farmland, sheep and some cattle. Estyn Evans, writing in 1966, says that the cairn “reaches a maximum height of 7 ft. and it is unlikely to have been much higher because at this point it is capped by a small patch of peat which presumably covered the entire site before the cairn was plundered.” And plundered and plundered and excavated or, again Evans, “much mutilated”… to the point where you wonder what the point is.

So first off, let me say I loved Dun Ruadh. It truly is special. But, and I didn’t want there to be a but, but there is… gorse is colonising the whole south-western paved area and ‘entrance’, hugely detracting from the impact of the place, eating into the inner ‘courtyard’, gobbling up the space and crowding out the vibe. Which is not to say that there’s no vibe there at all.

The ancient rubble of the horseshoe cairn retains such a huge amount of rustic magic as to obliterate my cynicism. Some of the excavated cists are visible in the cairn and the whole place has an air of quiet mystery. There’s no activity on the expanse of the hillside save a very few sheep and the atmosphere of the place seems to be funnelled through the monument. The orthostats of the ring, though gradually being encroached on by the gorse, blankly stare into the inner space, silently ceremonial, transporting us willingly to a lost time of mystery and wonder.

There is the possibility that such an important site as Dun Ruadh could be taken into state care, like at Beaghmore six kilometres to the east, where the manicured intrusiveness hardly detracts from the magic of the place, but in the end I know I’d hate that, all perfect fences, no doubt tight up to the stones, and explanatory noticeboards and the rugged ruin-ness all tidied up. Which is not to say that a half an hour and a bushman wouldn’t improve matters. Arriving back at the car, the ‘dead’ sheep was back on its feet, corralled temporarily at the schoolhouse, giving us a lesson in lightheartedness.

Dun Ruadh

Dun Ruadh is a one-off. Not quite sure what other term you would give to a massive horseshoe shaped cairn [still about 2.5 to 3m high – I reckon – in places] with a 17 stone circle defining a central courtyard. Apparently 13 cists were discovered in the cairn, some still visible, the whole site surrounded by a low bank and ditch......... so there you are.

Sited in the hills north of The Creggan visitor centre near Crouck – and featuring in its glossy brochure – the traveller is nonetheless on his own with this one – or at least you were at the time of my visit in June 2006, anyway. I therefore knocked at the nearest house, the woman who answered the door promptly ‘ordering’ her son, Brendan, to show us the way to the ‘fairie ring’ forthwith. ‘Er, OK mam’. Right on! Needless to say we bunged him a few quid for his trouble and traded political viewpoints.... suffice to say we both have a distinct problem with bigots of all types and I hope I showed him a positive side to us ‘Brits’... he was 16 at the time, but very clued up. I probably came across as a muppet, having said that.

Anyway the circle/cairn/whatever is a peach, very well preserved with great views of the Sperrins and bundles of atmosphere. Not surprising really, when only the locals know where it is and they can’t understand why us crazy people want to go there. Long may it continue for this is one of Ireland’s best.

Oh, and cheers to Four Winds for his web-site prompt.

Sites within 20km of Dun Ruadh