From “Some ACCOUNT of the VICARS CAIRN, in the County of Armagh; communicated to the COMMITTEE of ANTIQUITIES in two LETTERS, one from Dr. BROWNE. Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin; the other from the Rev. JOHN YOUNG, Curate of MULLABRACK.
Looking south from the ruined northern bank of the cairn.
The top of the cairn on the southern side. The northern part has been robbed out.
The cairn viewed from the south-west. Had it retained much of its original material, the tree on the left would be obscured.
The eastern side of the cairn.
Did you ever imagine a place and when you got there it was nothing like you imagined? Well, this was one of those places. Absolutely nothing like I imagined, which is no bad thing, because the surprises were a good enough consolation. I had to do a delivery near Ardee, maybe 60 kms south of here and just thought that I’d take in a few of the lesser known sites in the Louth, Monaghan, Armagh area and finish up here.
Ah, the best laid plans etc. All of the sites bar this were either no longer there, the fields were under crops or they were obscured by such a tangle of vegetation as to be unrecognisable. So I pushed on, crossing the Monaghan/Armagh border at Drumnart. Nearby at Doohat is a standing stone but I was moving fast and previous disappointments didn’t instil confidence enough to stop.
Through Keady and towards Markethill then north over the dam at Seagahan, a sharp right turn and then the third turn on the left, up to the prominence with the cairn. It’s all fairly rich farmland in the vicinity and the road scarps along the cairn on it eastern side. The northern part of the cairn has been robbed and the decorated stones that were reported in the 1700s are not to be found, but still it rises to about 4 metres from ground level at the south.
The views from on top of the cairn would be panoramic all around except the eastern aspect is blocked by trees. I stayed a while here in the sunshine, drinking in the summer buzz and lost for a while away from the mundanity. Then a local farmer woman happened along with her daughter and asked if I might move my car as her husband was moving cattle up the road soon and the spell was broken. Nice people, but I didn’t stick around as I was more than welcome to do.
