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County Leitrim

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<b>County Leitrim</b>Posted by Alan LeeErrew © Alan Lee
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10 posts
Aghamore Wedge Tomb
Aghamore Cairn(s)
Aghoo Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech
14 posts
Annaghmore Portal Tomb
10 posts
Barracashlaun Court Tomb
2 posts
Brockagh Lower Stone Row / Alignment
2 posts
Carrigeengeare Court Tomb
Churchfield Portal Tomb
Cleighran More Court Tomb
Clooneen Wedge Tomb
5 posts
Cloonfinnan Portal Tomb
5 posts
Cloonmeone Upper Court Tomb
11 posts
Commons Court Tomb
2 posts
Corduff South Wedge Tomb
12 posts
Corracloona Court Tomb
6 posts
Creenagh (Mohill By.) Court Tomb
2 posts
Creevy Court Tomb
3 posts
Creevy Portal Tomb
3 posts
Creevy Bullaun Stone
1 post
Derryhallagh Rath
1 post
Dromore Rath
7 posts
Drumany Wedge Tomb
4 posts
Drumany Portal Tomb
1 post
Druminalass Rath
Edenmore Bullaun Stone
2 posts
Errew Standing Stones
12 posts
3 sites
Fenagh Beg Portal Tomb
1 post
Fenagh (Glebe) Wedge Tomb
1 post
Fenagh Standing Stone Standing Stone / Menhir
2 posts
Gortinty Crannog
1 post
Gortnatresk Rath
1 post
Killameen Rath
Kilnagarns Lower Court Tomb
Kilnagarns Upper Wedge Tomb
1 post
Kiltyhugh Rath
3 sites
Knockmullin
5 posts
Largy Court Tomb
1 post
Larkfield Wedge Tomb
Lisdarush Wedge Tomb
Lisdrumgran Bullaun Stone
4 posts
Loughscur Court Tomb
7 posts
Loughscur Portal Tomb
7 posts
Mautiagh Court Tomb
1 post
Meenymore Souterrain
Modorragh Bullaun Stone
Shasgar Court Tomb
4 posts
Sheebeg Passage Grave
8 posts
Sheemore Passage Grave
Shesknan Court Tomb
1 post
Slieve Anierin Rocking Stone
Sliganagh Artificial Mound
Sunnagh More Portal Tomb
7 posts
Tawnamachugh Portal Tomb
5 posts
Tawnymanus Court Tomb
3 sites
Truskmore
7 posts
Tullyskeherny Court Tomb
8 posts
Wardhouse Megalithic Cemetery

Folklore

Add folklore Add folklore
Leitrim weirdness (and some casual destruction of archaeology), collected by the local teacher from Terence Geoghegan, a 55 year old farmer.
In the townland of Mullaghgarve in the year 1936, I was working on a Relief Scheme, and I came on a mound of stones. There were big long limestone flags, standing up on end along the sides of the mound and at both ends. Outside the flags there were piles of stones of various sizes and shapes - some of them would weigh about 2 cwt. Inside the same standing flags there were a number of broken flags which appeared to me to have been a cover that reached from the standing flags on one side to those on the opposite side. Of the standing flags there was one on the western end higher than the others. Outside that flag we got ashes similar to that, that comes from a turf fire.

Between the standing flags or stones were stones of various sizes which we removed for road metal. At a depth of about three or three and a half feet we came on a number of what we thought, in the gathering darkness of the evening, were human bones, and part of a skull. I brought home a number of the bones with me to examine them, as I heard there was a Druid buried there.

This happened in the month of December. Just as we were quitting work a friend invited me to his house to spend a few hours there. I went to it and brought the bag containing the bones with me. The people of the locality saw lights coming from and going to the house while I was in it but I knew nothing of this whatever.

I left the house at 11 or 11.30 p.m. and when I was a short distance from it I saw a number of lights in front of me, and as I was making my way to the road which I was approaching at right angles, I saw more lights farther away from me coming down the road. They were like so many lanterns, and I hurried to overtake those in front of me, as I thought they might be young lads going to a dance, and that their company would help to shorten the road home. I did not succeed as they went off on the bye-road where I was working during the day. I then waited for the other lights that were still coming on, and when they came to the by-road they went down it too. I then thought it strange that I was within 12 feet of each group of lights, and that I heard neither talking nor walking. There were about 7 or 8 lights in all.

I then continued on home, and nothing strange occurred till I was about 400 yards from my home. Suddenly a small light sprang up in front of me, and it was about a foot up from the ground. I first thought it was a glow-worm, and I stood to find out what had it raised so high above the ground. I put my hand under it, and raised it up on my hand. I felt no heat from it, or any kind of feeling of weight or softness. I at once shook it off my hand, and away it sailed through the air, increasing in size, and it went in the direction of the road where I was working, that is, in the direction of the mound. It went as straight as an arrow for there, but as a hill intervened between me and the mound I cannot say where it went when it crossed the hill.

As soon as I got to the house (my home) the roosters started to crow louder than I ever heard them before. I then went out to see was there anything wrong with the cattle in the byre, and to find out what was disturbing the birds, but I noticed nothing unusual. I then returned to the house, and with candle light I examined the bones which I had brought with me, and I concluded they were those of a human being.
As long as I was awake the cocks kept up the crowing, but as I was tired I fell asleep soon after going to bed, but my wife told me they kept up the din till daylight. She did not know that I had any bones home with me till next morning, for if she did I am sure she would make me put them outside the house.
From the Schools Collection, being digitised at Duchas.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
22nd October 2017ce
Edited 28th October 2017ce

Latest posts for County Leitrim

Showing 1-10 of 194 posts. Most recent first | Next 10

Mautiagh (Court Tomb) — Fieldnotes

Mautiagh – (maw-teeah – An Mháiteach [on vaw-chock] – the flooded place) townland spreads steeply north up the hill above Glenaniff valley. On the OS map there is a clear track up from the road and it’s directly aligned onto the tomb. It’s also there on the vector map at the Historic Environment Viewer, as clear as day. Go to the satellite image and it’s there too – it meanders up, zig-zagging in the lower reaches but straightens out eventually.

We knocked at the house on the road at the beginning of the track. Could we head up onto the mountain using the track at the back of your house? We want to go up to the megalithic tomb. That’s no problem, but you might struggle a bit. Understatement of the year, but sure she’s only trying to help. The track is now completely overgrown, impassable. So what to do? Nothing else for it than to head straight up through the woods, scrambling at first, then a fence appears on the right and this helps us gain the open air above the treeline.

Up here it’s all heather and bracken, our disappointing track probably a remnant from the old turf-cutting days. It’s a wilderness now, vague deer-trodden paths tempting us further and higher. We spy an old house – someone lived up here once, the track’s purpose finally revealed – imaginings of a desperate existence. There’s still a ways to go but you can feel it now.

We’ve been skirting the west side of the mountain for a while now when our objective appears, 250 metres ahead. The peat is deep here, treacherous holes hidden under pretty heather. The tomb is on more stable ground, the grey limestone of which it is made appearing like a scab on the skin of the deep brown and green environment. Our pace quickens.

There’s a large stone-wall enclosure north of the monument. Parts of its southern wall incorporate the megalithic tomb. The grave is a shattered mess, barely recognisable due to the material used in its construction being the same limestone pavement on which it lies. It looks like the tomb itself was prised up out of the ground with only a cursory plan. Looks can be deceptive. A north/south wall cuts through the cairn at the western end of what I thought was the complete tomb but as it turns out is just the eastern tomb of a dual court tomb. Over the wall, hidden in the heather, is another gallery, one I discovered back at home after the event. I’ve made this error too often lately.

Of the remains that we did see, the most prominently visible feature was the eastern court and the first two chambers of the eastern gallery. The court is now embedded in the peat, the tops of its stones peeping up and out to a max of about 30 cms. It’s wild up here and as we moped about, a handsome, brazen red fox headed south over the prow of the ridge about 50 metres away, aware of our presence but confident enough to take its time.

We’d started at the 170 contour and ended up at the 290, a paltry gain of around 120 metres, but it was a testing trek. A kilometre north of west of here is another court tomb in Shasgar – it would be a brave soul that would attempt both of these from the direction we took, or any direction for that matter.
ryaner Posted by ryaner
30th September 2021ce

Barracashlaun (Court Tomb) — Fieldnotes

Deep in the middle of nowhere you never know what you might find. Research first before you leave, for the the place can be treacherous, but don’t delve too deep, as revelation is the better part of the process. Park up as close as you can get and once agreement is reached, vault any obstacle and scour…

Sometimes the pin is dropped in the wrong place, anticipation and frustration in equal measure – it’s fucking ‘round here somewhere. Wretched, undulating semi-bog, thistly, rushy, dank… hazel scrub that seems to deter even the sheep. What am I looking for asks my mate. It’s a court tomb, or so they say. Maybe it’s been completely removed.

Limestone pavement is spied under wild ash, elder and hawthorn. A pincer movement, me down from the north, him up from the south, is this it? Here it is. The first sight is a large stone, outlying, probable part of the eastern court, laterally placed so maybe part of a jamb-like entrance into a sacred space, its smaller match hidden beneath the tangle of grass. This solitary stone is all that remains of the northern arm of the court.

Push deeper into the small glade – you know it’s there, nettles are nothing now. Huge jambstones signal the entrance into a three-chambered gallery, everything blocky, slab-like lumps of limestone, moss-covered. The southern wall of the first two chambers of the gallery has been removed. Massive slabs of corbelling sit precariously atop the northern wall. Covered by a spindly, splayed hazel tree, the third chamber is inaccessible, the jambs separating it from the middle chamber like sentinels.

Come out south and around the back and beyond the third chamber there’s more. Another tomb in fact, the south-western, double-chambered, baby bro of this dual court tomb set. Again there’s no southern wall – the floor of the gallery here is filled-in, deeply buried in the cairn. Substantial, tiered corbelled slabs remain on the northern side, here out in the open. Maybe there’s a court beyond, back in under the dense vegetation further west, or maybe there once was.

Barracashlaun (Barr an chaisleán?, top of the castle), western, wild, partially decrepit – go to google maps and see the quarry creep ever closer. The middle of somewhere approaches.
ryaner Posted by ryaner
27th September 2021ce
Edited 28th September 2021ce

Mautiagh (Court Tomb) — Images (click to view fullsize)

<b>Mautiagh</b>Posted by ryaner<b>Mautiagh</b>Posted by ryaner<b>Mautiagh</b>Posted by ryaner<b>Mautiagh</b>Posted by ryaner<b>Mautiagh</b>Posted by ryaner<b>Mautiagh</b>Posted by ryaner ryaner Posted by ryaner
17th August 2021ce

Barracashlaun (Court Tomb) — Images

<b>Barracashlaun</b>Posted by ryaner<b>Barracashlaun</b>Posted by ryaner ryaner Posted by ryaner
17th August 2021ce
Showing 1-10 of 194 posts. Most recent first | Next 10