This is a small standing stone outside Mitchelstown here the Labbamolaga standing stones.
This is another tomb that has disappeared in dense pine forest plantation. I have seen it marked on a few information boards around the area so there is a possiblity that it is there.
However there doesnt appear to have been any clearing left for it and there is a lot of stone lying around within the forest so makes it very difficult to pin down.
I went back to this a second time with a 10 digit ordnance survey reference.
Still couldnt find it and had a good root around some pretty scary looking forest so dont think it remains.
I dont know how well the cupmarks come out of this stone. Unfortunately capturing light etc isnt my area.
According to the North Tipp Inventory these are possible cupmarks. Ill give the reference
“According to an OPW field report (30-12-1997) there are cupmarks on the external faces of some of the kerbstones in the SE quadrant; these are now covered with lichen. A possible cupmark was noted on the internal face of a stone in the NNW quadrant and onthe external face of a stone at ESE”
This sounds to me like they couldnt find the cupmarks in the SE quadrant due to lichen but these are the ones I pictured. There are least 20-25 cupmarks on the stone and I would love to get a really good pic of it
This site is Missing in Action underneath dense pine plantation. May be possible to find it once they are harvested.
This fallen standing stone is about 2m long and lies at the west end of the barrow.
What is really interesting about it are the incisions made in the stone which the North Tipp Inventory believe to be ‘faked’ ogham script that was put their to confuse antiquarians!
The stone was standing in recent memory.
This barrow doesnt appear on the OS map but can be found in the North Tipp inventory where there is a picture of it. This and the little bit of folklore that is attached to it were the main reasons why I wanted to see it. It is located about 2 miles from the village of Upperchurch.
According to local tradition this site was the burial site of the “Great Dane” and part of the “Jewel of the Dane” estate whatever that means!
The tipp inventory gives it dims as (diam 0.26m: D 0.11m) which sounds about right. The stone itself is in the North Eastern quadrant of the ring-fort.
Its an unusual stone in that there is no evidence that I know of any early religious sites within the vicinity. The stone itself is tricky to find. Its off a back-road near Borrisoleigh, I stopped at a wall with a no dumping sign that is adjacent to a ring-fort up on the summit of a hill (on opposite side of road to the wall). (If you find this spot you will know it!)
Then the stone is about 3 fields in directly to the rear of a farm stead but just far enough away that you wont look too suspicious walking around.
This cairn is only a few miles from Cairn and access to it is pretty good. Its about 2 fields in from the road.
When I first saw it from about a field back I couldnt believe its size. I actually thought it was a ring-fort and I was imagining this big pile of stones. The main reason I was surprised at its size was due to it being in the middle of farm-land I presumed it would have been cleared or used for road-building by now.
It must be about 4m high and the diameter must be about 20-25m. As above it is in great condition and I would say that nothing has been removed from it. To the east there is a slight depression on top of the cairn which may point to where a chamber has fallen in.
Another interesting feature is the ‘alignment’ with Galtymore / Galtybeg which seem to form a pair of breasts at this point. Either that or a psychotherpist would have a field-day with me!
This is a real tough climb up at 418m high. The cairn itself is actually now in an island of trees with only one very thin sliver of a free break to get into it. So you could be walking all over the place if you dont approach from the correct side. I came up from the side where the track is shown on the map and then broke off as the track went into the forestry.
This cairn had been on my list for a long time having made at least four previous attempts to climb it.
The cairn itself is low and I would say it has been rebuilt. However I would say it may originally have been a Cist or something like that.
Views are magnificant up here and you see way over limerick down on to CnocGreine and beyond.
This is a lovely monument, a boulder burial. There are four burials, the biggest boulder being about 1 metre high. The boulders themselves are all snarled and have a lot of character. I believe there was a stone circle on the hill next to this Reardnogy Beg that has since been destroyed.
The burial seems to be lined up towards the spur of the Mahur Slieve where the sun rises on Summer Solstice morning.
Best to just pick a gate at the fields on the road for access. There were a few bullocks in the field the time I went to look at it.
This standing stone is about a half km north of the passage tomb at Knockroe.
It is beside the bank of a stream. It is about 2m high, maybe 200mm in width.
2008
I only had time to drop down to Knockroe once this year, for sunset on the 20th and I was almost rewarded for the journey. On an otherwise pretty cloudy day an area of cloudless sky was holding out where the sun was beginning to set.
I couldnt believe my luck as the rays of the sun began to fill the back of the chamber at Knockroe.
Unfortunately just as it was making its way into what would be perfect alignment (above the trees to the right of the farm buildings on the horizon according to the people assembled) a cloud came in to block it off.
What I did see certainly was worth the effort as it was a fabulous sight seeing the sun against the back stone lighing up some of the rock-art.
Hopefully for next year the chamber stone that is beginning to fall inwards will have been fixed as this seems to effect where the sun shines on the backstone causing a shadowing effect. I most certainly come back to see this again next year.
2007
I dropped down to Knockroe for the winter solstice for 2 days running. However there was no sign of the sun for sunrise or sunset. On the 20th it was very quiet with very few around. I think there was maybe 2 in the morning and 3 or 4 in the evening. On the 21st it was much busier, maybe 10 in the morning and about 30 in the evening.
First 3 times it was nice but i think for the last sunset even if the sun had shone right you probably wouldnt have got much of an effect with so many people around.
The place still is in bad condition, some of the people down there reckon the sunset alignment isnt working as well because someone took away a support that kept the width of some of the stones set. So this is very disappointing.
One guy that had been down said that out of 7 years being there he had only seen the sunrise alignment twice. So that is the odds you have really. I think this year it worked pretty good at sunset on the 19th. I was on the way over to it but decided to go shopping in Clonmel instead!
As I said as well they now think that nearby Bawnfree Hill is aligned to the winter solstice sunset too. Im not too sure myself though.
This is an odd stone, its marked as a bullaun stone but really I cant see how it could be.
There are possibly three very faint depression on its surface as I have marked with the red circles. However today I poured some water in them but it didnt settle and just ran straight off.
However the fact that this rock was left in the corner of the field and never removed must mean something?
Update:
I read recently that the bullaun stone has been removed. This stone is thought to be prehistoric however. I have no idea what kind of monument it was part of.
This is a very strange almost rectangular bullaun stone. It is located on a river bed about 1/2 km from the village of Ballypatrick.
Other than the name Ballypatrick there is no evidence on the map of an old church in the area.
This and the strange shape of the bowl make this a very unusual site.
This was meant to be in a graveyard. However many of the slabs have been used to build up a low wall as part of the remains of the church here. There is no sign of the bullaun however I think if it still remains on site this maybe where it is.
This is a nice tomb in good condition on low ground. To the south the ground begins to rise and there is a lot of exposed rock. There is a record of rock-art on some of this rock but i wasnt able to find it.
The tomb must be about a 1m high by approx 3m long.
Unfortunately I couldnt find this panel of rock-art. I spoke to an english guy that owns a cottage just at the end of the lane that leads up here. He told me he had lived there 5 years and had been unable to find either of the panels of rock-art. He said that the old woman who owned the house before him used to know where one of them was. She used to take the kids from the local school to see it when she was a young woman. However at the time he met her she claimed that she could no longer remember where it was.
So I guess in the last say 60 years at least one of these panels were visible. www.archaeology.ie has the panel at this rough grid ref as Rock-Art and the other grid ref as Rock Scribing. Im not sure what the difference is.
This bullaun stone is pretty close to the road just a few kms outside of Tipp Town.
It is marked on the OS map by a Cross. Its a cool bullaun stone with a turning (cursing?) stone. There is a pond very close by to the stone.
The cross seems to have come out of the socket it was in and now lies up against the bullaun stone.
Small standing stone outside Hospital. Id say its only about 500mm high.
This stone also isnt marked on the map but it really looks standing stone ish to me. As per the style at the moment i stuck a horse in the shot for effect.
There is a mound marked nearby but it looks in bad shape. More like field clearance than a mound really.
This is a strange site, there is nothing marked on the top of Luddenmore on the OS map yet there is a very impressive standing stone and the remains of what appears to be a cairn.
Archeaology.ie calls it a stone circle and Ive seen it mentioned as being a cathair.
So I cant really say what is up here other than what I saw myself. The views are amazing and again this seems to be interconnected with the other major hills around here. You can see across to the hillfort on Knockroe and it seems to line up with Cnoc Greine behind it.
It is hard to make it up onto the summit, it is a in the middle of agricultural land and there were lots of horses and cattle on it. There is also a recycling Mr. Binman site and a quarry nearby so be careful if you do decide to climb up here.
This standing stone isnt marked on the OS map. It is on the top of Luddenmore / Buchillbreaga.
It is about 2.25m in height. From below it looks huge altogether.
There is also the strange broken ruin of some kind of turret. I dont know what it was for. Perhaps it had something to do with the antennas that are up here but i doubt it because it is held together using lime mortar.
This is a very unusual Bullaun Stone as far as I can see.
The stone itself must be about 1.25m high by about 1.75m long and is probably big enough to be a standing stone in its own right.
The depth of the bowl is about 600mm deep, I presume that must be a lot for a bullaun.
Also there is what looks like a few cup marks on one side. They may be natural but who knows?
There is a church and holy well about 200m away from here. However to put it in context, it is also in an area rich with older sites such as standing stones (a holed one at Inch) and the hillfort at Knockroe and the unusual features on Luddenmore.
It took me about 3 visits to find this stone. Finally I asked in Cahir Castle about whether it had possibly moved into the Castle.
The girl behind the desk didnt know but there were two OPW workers hanging about and one of the guys could confirm it was there. He called it St Patricks Knee stone.
I headed back up again and used a stick on the over-growth around it. Im living in Cahir at the moment so will try and keep it clear of growth.
This isnt far from Kilronan and can be seen from the road as you head from Kilronan to Dun Aonghus. It is not as impressively situatied as Dun Aonghus but you actually get a better view of all parts of the island. Worth a look for the views alone.
The North Tipp Inventory places this beside St. Kierans well. However it is actually 500m down the road at what locals call the “knee” of the road. This bullaun is where St. Kieran is meant to have knelt down leaving his knee print.
The bowl itself is pretty small, about 200mm diameter by maybe 150mm deep.
This one is located in a Protestant Church / Graveyard just off the Nenagh to Cloughjordan road.
It is made in a earth fast outcrop. It is about 400mm diameter by 300mm deep.
This bullaun stone is located just off the main cahir to clonmel road beside a fairly easily spotted ringfort across from a nursing home.
I jumped the fence and headed in to have a look, watch the bard-wire fence it is actually electric.
The stone is large and the bullaun must be about 600mm diameter maybe 300mm deep.
There are at least three other half bullauns where it appears the rock was split in half.
From here the hill of Slievenamon really dominates the area.
These two bullaun stones are in the RC church in the village of Lorrha beside a Dominician Friary.
It looks to me as if they may have been transported from elsewhere.
The one on the left is about 300mm diam by 200mm deep. The one on the right is bigger and may be two bowls that has merged into one.
Diameter 600mm by 250mm deep.
This bullaun was moved from Modreeny Churchyard just outside Cloughjordan but it is now used as the holy water font for the RC church in Cloughjordan village, OS Grid Ref R976879.
This bullaun stone is only about a mile from where I live and yet I never heard of it growing up.
The bowls dims in the North Tipp Inventory are diameter 370mm and depth about 300mm. It is about 20m away from a ringfort.
To find it I would recommend a GPS or if stuck give me a shout!
When I read the information board and it mentioned a spiral votive I was very excited. Especially with the amount of great rock-art that Cianmacliam and Fourwinds are photographing around Ireland.
Im not sure when this spiral is dated to but I presume it it Christain. However it is not a design that is used very often in Christain art.
It looked to me as if the lintels may have been “megalithic” when I did a search when I got home that evening I was happy to see that I had the same theory as Anthony Weir on his website.
He also mentions possible alignments with the Galtys which I have to be honest I didnt see. This is a lovely site and a place where you could bring anyone (non-megalithic) for a quick stop and I think they would be impressed. So I think I will drop in here at another stage.
There are three mounds marked as “Tumuli” and a host of ring-forts marked on the OS map.
There are also signs for the Cush Prehistoric Complex from the town of Kilfinnane.
There is a nice parking area for access. However access is not as straight forward as it sounds.
The parking area allows you to visit one of the ring-forts and that is about it. The “Tumuli” are on private property and require jumping over a number of fences and thru a few fields.
I also got the impression thru a number of signs restricting access that perhaps the landowners arent too happy about people being on there lands.
I could be wrong maybe they are just making sure they not liable.
The mounds themselves arent as impressive as I thought they might be, 2 of them are just about 1.5m high while the third is very low and hard to make out.
There is an impressive ringfort very close to the mounds but it doesnt photograph very well.
I believe that burials were found in the bottom of some of the ring-forts and this is really a multi-period site. The mounds date to the Bronze Age according to the info board, approx 2000-1600BC.
On my way back from the Rath I had another good snoop around for the standing stone. Especially since it is mentioned on the fairly recent looking information board at the Rath.
Still no sign so I decided to stop in at the farm nearby where I could hear so activity going on.
As I drove in there on my left beside the swing was the standing stone.
I talked to the farmer and he said he had moved it to his yard for safety.
It is a fine standing stone about 2m-2.3m.
I spotted a standing stone on the OS map near a short-cut Ive been taking on the road home from dublin. It is near the town of Ballyraggert in Kilkenny. On a whim I decided to have a look because it seemed so close to the road.
I hopped into the field where I thought it would be hoping to get a quick picture and be on my way again.
The field beside where it should be is the location of a piggery and the sounds or the smell out of it werent great but thats how we get bacon I guess.
I had a good look around for the standing stone marked but there was no sign of it. I decided to have a quick look at the church marked on the OS map.
To my surprise out of nowhere was this massive Rath.
How something like this isnt marked on the map or more well know is beyond me. However it does have an information board and is a national monument with sign and all.
The info board says that the inner diameter is 50m and the the ground inside the ring is 3m above the surrounding field. Parts of the ditch are up to 6m deep.
There is also a souterrain located within it but I didnt see this at the time. It may be closed in.
I decided to head up here finally to to see if this monument is aligned to the Equinox sunrise (as predicted by Fourwinds).
It was a fabulous morning and myself and my Dad sat around on the crisp 22nd of September morn waiting for the sun to rise.
When it finally did, we made a few interesting observations. The first was that the sun does enter the right hand side of the chamber (looking in) lighting it up pretty well. However due to the number of gaps now in the exterior of the tomb any effect is really lost.
We decided it may be worth coming up here next equinox with some black plastic bags to try and darken it as much as possible.
The second interesting thing was the way the sun shone thru the back chamber. I was inside the main chamber snapping away when my Dad spotted it.
Im not sure it this the second chamber was open to the east originally but it looks like a pretty good fit for the equinox sunrise. It may be just a coincidence but if say the east end of the chamber was open but the rest closed off it would surely light the small chamber completely on the Equinox?
The stone itself seems to be lintel like. themodernantiquarian.com/site/1034/baurnadomeeny.html
Perhaps the main chamber is aligned to a different sunrise, I would be interested to know which way the sun rises on say Winter Solistice, is it further north or south than at the equinox?
Following a post on the forum, it seems like the summer solstice sunrise may have the best chance of entering the chamber.
Update
I headed up here on the 22nd of December and thankfully the sun was shining at sunrise. Amazingly enough there were 3 more people up here, so that made a welcome change. The sun seems to shine into the rear portico at right angles to the length of the tomb.
Two of the people that were there had been up there the previous Summer Solstice morning and confirmed that the sun does shine into the main chamber on this day over the foothill of the Mahurslieve. So that is definitely a time for further research.
This holy well is fantastic. When I first got there I was acutally a bit spooked by the area. The trees really enclose it and it is pretty dark beside the well.
It took a bit of time to get used to the unsettling feeling that the place gives off but once I did I relaxed and you really get a very tramquil feeling of the place.
It still seems to be in use today with lots of offering there and the water seems fresh.
As Fourwinds mentions the eddys in the well are lovely and Im sure they were one of the reasons for locating here and for the wells “sacredness”.
There is now also a timber path going from the Kyle to the well so it would be very hard to miss it now.
There can be cows/ cattle and horses in the fields so keep an eye out.
To get a view of the well at a different time of view see Fourwinds site here megalithomania.com/show/site/1239/Kilberrihert.htm
Not much to see up here either. This mound can only be barely seen as a slight difference in the grass. I believe that archaeology.ie has this referenced as a stone circle for some reason. There is no sign of any stone in the area.
There is a pretty large Rath that is circled on the map just next to it.
Doesnt seem to be much of a cairn left here. Basically all there is the cross. I guess suggests that it may have been a place of assembly in the area. The views from up here are great. It is a commanding spot.
Tricky enough to find as there seems to be a labyrinth of roads in these parts.
You can see evidence of some of the hill-fort ring that circles the tomb. I didnt walk all of it because of the cows but i would think this goes around half of the way around the tomb. It seesm to stop at a boundary wall where the other half of the circle should continue but doesnt.
This “cairn” is just off the N8 at Johnstown on the main Dublin-Cork road. Recently Ive been passing this way quite a bit and wondered about the funny looking trees on top of the hill (They are pretty distinctive from the road).
I checked the OS map and it looked to me as the trees corresponded to the position of a cairn so I decided to take a look.
Head into Johnstown and turn left and then left again where there is a sign for the Spahill. It should be easy to find from here.
I’m not sure about the cairn itself. It seems to be a tree covered mound. The mound itself isnt very distinctive. However the fact that a wall has been built around it to protect it says to me that it is of some importance locally.
It may be possible that the wall around it was built from some of the material from the cairn. I dont know.
There is also a funny feature in the wall. A little “portal” no more than half a metre high. Maybe its for letting wild animals (badgers?) in and out of the enclosure.
I imagined it was left for the little people to get back into their Sidh!
This is an interesting megalithic tomb and hillfort on Spahill in Kilkenny.
The mound itself is maybe up to 1.5-2m high by about 10m diameter. It is made up of stone cairn material and there seems to be two unusual stones sticking out of the top of it. Some of material may have been removed and there is what looks like the remains of a filled in chamber, but its hard to tell.
To the south east, Slievenamon can be easily picked out and there is a great panaroma view all around the site here.
Archaeology.ie has this down as a “passage tomb”. Im not sure if it does have a passage but it would be interesting to find out.
There is a mound marked here just off what will become the slip road from the M8 into Cahir.
Not a lot to see really. Just said Id post to save anyone the stop.
There is a great view from the mound to Knockgraffon Motte so I think this mound may be from the same period.
There are two fabulous reconstructed crannogs here at Craggaunowen. I hoped they would be a further distance into the lake but are actually only a few metres from the mainland.
This portal tomb is located in Craggaunowen Folk Park near Sixmilebridge. I believe it is signposted from Shannon / Bunratty.
This portal tomb is so neat looking that at first I thought it was a fake. Seemingly it is genuine.
It is about 1.25m high and the cap stone is triangular making for a strange shaped chamber.
This standing stone is located in Craggaunowen folk park in Co. Clare.
It is about 1.5m high. It is mentioned on the information leaflet that they give out but is not on the OS Map.
From on top of this rock you can clearly see the standing stone of Longstone.
themodernantiquarian.com/site/7744/longstone.html
The Rock itself is a massive natural landmark and this combined with its views of the surrounding hills and the fact there is a church dedicated to St. Bridget beside make me think that it may have had some importance dating back to pre-christain times.
There are 5 standing stones clearly shown on the OS map to the norht of Lough Gur.
They are two far apart to be called a stone row I thing and may be more of an avenue.
Eogan in the North Munster Project suggests they may be leading towards a ford on the river camoge or may be a territorial marker between two different areas.
The stones arent particulary dramatic all smaller than 0.5m high.
The fourth stone is missing and talking to a local guy he told me there was a deal made over its removal.
The North Munster Project shows a few more stones to the south of this that arent on the OS map and I will try and investigate these also.
I think they may be a route from the ceremonial Lough Gur to the defensive hill-fort at Knockroe.
A lovely stone row and its just in off the road so access is easy.
The tallest stone (beside the tree) is maybe 1m high while the stone at the western end is a lovely craggy rock.
I had this on my list to visit for a long time because I thought Cnoc Firinne may be visible from here.
However the row seems more to be leaning towards the mountains to the south, the Ballyhouras I think.