ryaner

This took a bit of finding, not wholly unsurprising at this time of the year. We parked up the way of the cul de sac and walked a couple of hundred metres. A farmer and his son were harvesting in the field we needed to traverse and he was very happy to allow us head over to the tomb. His directions of “off up to the right” were as helpful as trying to use the old OS map, but in the end he was right, just that the tomb was on the wrong side of the hedge and completely overgrown on the side from which we approached.

It’s a little gem really. Leaving aside it’s overgrown state and the fact that some of the trees may eventually collapse the whole structure, there’s quite a lot left. Both portals, both sidetones and most of the capstone are extant, if not in their exact original position. The southern portal and sidetone are both leaning inwards. The large capstone, estimated at 6 tons (see folklore below) has had a portion snap off at the rear of the chamber where the backstone seems to be missing.

Opened up and allowed to breathe a little, Carrickclevan would be by no means a spectacular, show site – it’s not even head height. Which is not to say that it couldn’t do with a bit of love – it squats there, almost as an afterthought, slightly shamefaced, cowering beneath all that vegetation. After spending a bit of time we left, happy to have found it, almost lost and unloved, but now re-discovered.

Opposite the entrance to Dunsany castle, at the foot of a christian cross is this quite peculiar stone. The two bullauns are fairly shallow, in comparison to most, and there are said to be more cup-like depressions that I didn’t notice. The stone itself is almost square-shaped and has been fractured in a couple of places down through the years (or the millenia). The white lichen almost covers the entire surface and makes it hard to examine. An oddity.

The Caher river valley runs roughly north-south through the townland of Derrynavahagh. North of the townland there is a crossroads in Formoyle East where the Burren Way crosses, having descended from the northern slopes of Sliabh Eilbhe, heading east towards Gleninagh mountain. We had been further back along the Way earlier at Ballyelly enclosure and wedge tomb, but had spun our way around back up through Fanore and onto the Caher Valley road. I had kind of a loose plan that had gone out the window a few sites back so here we were, south of the crossroads, in the thick hazel scrub that has colonised so many parts of the Burren.

There is probably a better, safer, easier way to Derrynavahagh wedge tomb, south from the Burren Way perhaps, across the limestone pavement, but hindsight is a great thing. Right now I had a carload of barely interested teenagers and a half-interested friend, and even though Derrynavahagh is one of the finest examples in the Burren, I was close to giving up when I asked, “well, are yous up for it or what?” Up for it, as it turned out, was climbing up from the road south of the crossroads, after we had found a spot where the scrub had thinned out. After a few shrugs, and a sort of explanation of what ‘it’ entailed, we headed up.

The Burren terrain rises and falls in a series of terraces. Often the climb from one terrace to the other is only 10 metres. From what I could make out from the satellite photo I had (ah the pleasures of modern technology), we’d have a series of three climbs and a half a kilometre of a walk over varying ground. The ascent from the road to gain the first scrub-covered terrace was the hardest. The second ascent left us on our first bit of raw limestone pavement. This is what the Burren is really about and my companions were delighted. I headed for the third ascent and over to the tomb.

It’s semi-surrounded by a modern stone wall and is a stunner. Largely intact and isolated, it’s kind of an introverted megalithic explorer’s ultimate dream. It has the wedge shape, take-off and landing-strip profile that we all know and love. The massive capstone has broken at the rear of the chamber and doesn’t reach the backstone. There are a couple of slabs lying around that are or were part of the tomb but I couldn’t make out from whence they came. The triple walling on the eastern side is phenomenal, with the 2 metre tall standing stone beyond the chamber opening almost like a sentinel standing guard.

Aside from the magnificence of the tomb, the location has to be commented on. To the east the ridge rises towards Faunarooska townland with its three ruined tombs. West and south-west across the Caher river valley is the broad expanse of Sliabh Eilbhe, with its craggy terracing. North towards Black Head is Gleninagh mountain. It’s an area rich in isolated wonders and, without sounding like a tourist rep. or salesman, one could spend weeks here, lost in the mesmerising views both near and far, endlessly pondering the beauty and magnificence of the world.

I’ve been to Calliagh Berra’s house and lake 5 times, I think, and never written about it before. It’s well covered elsewhere and I haven’t felt the need. Experiences today, and newspaper reports, have given me second thoughts, so here goes.

The Ring of Gullion caldera itself would be impressive and worth a visit even without having one of the highest passage graves in Ireland, plus the lake, plus the second cairn. Then there’s Ballykeel dolmen to its west. So it’s a bit of a draw really, and not just for stone heads. Slieve Gullion forest park is a major attraction, with playgrounds, a café, various trails and easy access. Out of season, however, the crowds thin out, and there was no-one around on the snowy, January day I visited in 2016. Not today alas.

The car-park on the western shoulder that Gladman mentions below is still there. I’ve used it on all the occasions I’ve visited. It’s on close to the 350 metre contour, thus leaving you about a 226 metre climb. You could start from the car-park at the forest park centre, about a four kilometre walk below at the 120 metre contour, but I’ve always had the car and never felt the need.

The ascent to the summit and the cairn is quite strenuous but is now along a stone and gravel track. Access has been opened up and at many of the steepest parts the track turn into stone stairs. Work on this is ongoing and they’ve even gone as far as creating a track across the boggy top of the mountain, over to the lake and the second tomb.

All of this positive work does have its downside however. The erosion around the tomb is increasing. In fact, all of the top of the mountain is suffering. Who am I to complain about this? I get out as often as I can and how can we enthusiasts separate ourselves from the general mass of the populace seeking the benefits of the great outdoors?

And what of the tomb itself? It’s not the ultimate destination of a lot who come here. It seems to me to be an afterthought to most, a bunch of rocks without too much meaning other than vague notions of times past. Which is maybe its saving grace – most don’t bother too much with it, taking the odd selfie, clambering onto it and into it and leaving not long after. And then there’s the cohort that stick around a bit longer, maybe have a few beers and a few spliffs, who knows, maybe light a fire and fuck around a bit, carving names or initials into the rocks in the chamber, generally getting shitfaced and not giving too many fucks about anything. Been there, done that.

It’s been on my mind a bit, this general disregard for, and the popularising of, these places – and not just because it’s in the papers. I’ve been to some sites this year that have been trashed and I have felt caught between two stools. On the one hand I’m an enthusiast that photographs these places and put the results on an open website, partly guilty of the very popularising that I sneer at. And on the other, when I see these places restricted, like the cold houses of Knowth and Newgrange, I bristle.

I love Calliagh Berra’s house, even with its fake ass roof. The thunderously clunky construction of the chamber, the inexpert basin stones, the lintel over the passage entrance, the passage itself with its massive horizontal ‘orthostats’ and the quite massive cairn, all together make this tomb unique in passage grave-dom. We sheltered from the mini-storm back that day in 2016, in the mother’s womb, and were grateful. But this may be a luxury in the future. The general disregard of, even the vandalism and trashing of these places may end in them being closed to everyone. And in the end, who could argue with that?

About a kilometre south of Fanore Beach a road climbs the lower northwest slopes of Sliabh Eilbhe in an almost southerly direction. This road meets the Burren Way walkers’ trail at Balliny North after about 2.5 kilometres. You can park here. Head back in a northeasterly direction along the Burren Way. The track is well walked and popular. It’s in that part of the Burren where there is still a thin cover of soil and vegetation, more dangerous for traversing than the denuded parts as the cover tends to hide the grykes that can result in a snapped ankle.

The walk to the enclosure, tomb and the hut site is about 2.5 kilometres of leisurely trekking. The stones and condition of the enclosure walls and the hut site are similar to those of the shattered and collapsed tomb. This could lead one to believe that they originate from the same era. I like to think that there was a bronze-age smallholding here which included the wedge tomb.

There’s not much to say about the tomb itself. It’s in a very collapsed state, but both sidetones seem to be there, along with a couple of roofslabs and a possible backstone. It is typical of the Burren wedge tomb class.

We spent a while here in the welcome but intermittent sunshine. The Burren terrain, like the Aran Islands to the west, seems to suck the noise of the world out of the atmosphere, enclosing the spirit in a bubble of peace and eeriness. We investigated the clochán about 250 metres to the south-east and then headed back to the track via the enclosure.

So I finally got to this one, Baur South (Cl. 26) for us pedants. I’d been in the area three times previously and always lucked out. Not this time mofo. What can I say about the Historic Environment Viewer at archaeology.ie except that it’s the coolest, most valuable thing on the www for Irish archaeology heads (and guess what: there’s now a Historic Environment Map Viewer for the six counties).

Heading north-east from the Lissylisheen/Cahermacnaghten area you emerge from the Hazel scrub as the road veers directly east. Stop here. There’s a boundary wall that seems to continue from the west side of the road over to the east. Walk back west and the tomb is north of this wall, about 250 metres from the road.

The 1961 photo of the tomb shows it in a typical craggy Burren field, open to the air and able to breathe. Alas no more. It’s now coralled within a copse of the dreaded hazel scrub, inundated with vegetation that teemed with midges and flies on the last day of July. It’s kinda sad and a tad frustrating.

Still and all it was a treat. The box within a box doesn’t make any logical sense. No harm there. The outer ‘skin’ is said to have the remains of more outer walling, but this, and the transversely set entrance stones, were not visible in its present condition. We didn’t stay long, attacked by swarms of insects, and with the hunger growing on us from a long day out, we fled down the road to Poulnabrone, civilised and staid, and then back to reality.

Most people visit Gleninagh for the tower house and the storm beach. Down the track off the Ballyvaughan to Black Head road and there’s also a holy well, some fulachtaí fia, the remains of a bawn and a ‘house of indeterminate age’.

The very scant remains of a wedge tomb are what we’re looking for. Beyond the tower house, towards the storm beach, there are two parallel, reasonably thick slabs embedded in the ground, aligned roughly north-south. They’re not much and it’s surprising that they’re still here, given the needs of the construction of the tower house, but here they are. Maybe it was superstition that stopped its complete destruction.

The usual summer growth stopped me from investigating further – there may be more stones there. The two visible sidestones are heavily embedded in the turf. The storm beach is really rather magnificent. If you’re passing, maybe heading to Fanore or Moher, you could spend a while here and be well rewarded.

Aughinish (Eachinis) is a destination, a small Clare island, connected by a causeway to the neighbouring county of Galway. There’s nowhere to go after here, save the wide expanse of Galway Bay, and after that the good ole US of A. It’s about 2 kilometres east to west and a little over a kilometre north to south.

A road that runs the length of the island morphs into a track about half way along in a tiny hamlet. The track terminates at a small cliff on the western end of the island, a rubble beach about 50 feet below. There is a slight path along the top of the cliff. Follow this north to the fifth field along. The tomb is 60 metres back into this field, along the north side of the wall.

The remains are scant, but this is a very Burren-like wedge tomb. The northern sidestone, the backstone and the roofstone are definitely there. The southern sidestone could still be there but I couldn’t see for all the summer growth. The tilt of the roofstone says that maybe it’s gone.

I wondered how Aughinish wedge tomb has survived. The clouds raced by and the sun occasionally broke through. The view west towards Black Head was beautiful. I could while away a while here but I had bigger fish to fry, and impatient teenagers back at the car. Like I said, not on the way anywhere and all the better for that.

There are some sites that hold an enduring fascination, even though, because of their ruinous condition, they are well past their sell by dates. It could be their location, or the tantalising tales of what once was, or it could be a je ne sais quois, a more regular feeling about a lot of these places. It could also be the grim determination that one feels, that no matter what remains and no matter how insubstantial it is, we will bear witness, gripped as we are by endless curiosity, nagging impulse and barmy nerdishness. It could be any, or all, like Rush today, of these.

Drive or walk north out of Rush village (now an ever-expanding town) on the Skerries road and the first turn on the right is Six Cross Lane. This leads down to the north beach of Rush with its caravan parks and holiday homes. Take this, the more adventurous route, to access the site (There is a track 150 metres further north that leads to an easier route, but it was waterlogged and muddy today and was only suitable for wellies, not my cheap Lidl walking boots).

From the north beach, walk north towards the promontory where the remains lie, rounding a small headland and fording the stream that flows through the deep gully. You can ascend, with mild difficulty, the path where the stream meets the beach. Follow the track past the cabbage fields, east onto the promontory and skirting the cliff-edge and there you have it.

It’s true that keeping one’s expectations low seldom leads to disappointment, and from reading the various sources, I wasn’t expecting much. There are more remains here than I have read about in any of the mentions I’ve found, but when one reads that this was a conical mound, thirty metres in diameter with a ten metre long passage and a 2.4 metre long chamber, one realises that these remains are scant indeed. But today is really about location and sensation and determination and relief.

Three contiguous stones still stand in the undergrowth and cairn rubble that separates the penultimate field of the small promontory from the field beyond. They look like kerbstones. It’s not much to hold on to, they’re not mentioned anywhere else, but there they are. Just over the rubble in the corner of the last field, beside the track, lies a large, loose boulder, said definitively to be from the the tomb. Were this all that remains, other than the written words of what once was, disappointment may have sunk in, but no – what is here ought to be examined and preserved, but probably won’t.

I’d been up the road in Skerries earlier and had gotten lashed on. The two sites I’d visited there deserved more attention than I’d managed, but here the sun had emerged. I’d almost given up when I’d seen the waterlogged, muddy track, had returned to the car and started to head for home. Then the pull kicked in. Fuck it. I turned the car around and sought another route, not fully believing there was a way, but there was a will.

Herity says that the mound “had been more than half-destroyed when W.P. Newenham saw the site in 1838.” I’ve driven past the location many a time and wondered was the whole thing just wiped away, pulled apart and ploughed into the ground. Well not all of it. There are traces still, tantalising, like the sensation one has looking across to distant, private Lambay, just out of reach but still possible. The colours of the day were emerging from the greyness that has dominated this last four or five weeks of this unique pandemicked summer. Sun was breaking through as the rain fled across the Irish sea and I didn’t want to leave but had to.

Small barow-like mound in a large pasture field outside the village of Dunderry. While my companion waited in the car, I hopped the field gate with enthusiasm, visions of Herity’s outlier passage grave spurring me on.

Not visible from the road as it is obscured by the rise of the low hill on which it sits, what we have here is, imho, a small barrow. The boulders that Herity mentions could be the remains of a kerb, but I doubt it – they looked a lot like clearance to me, embedded in the turf now, but hey, who am I but a lowly megalithic adventurer.

Possibly worth a quick diversion on your way from Tara to Tlachtga, probably not.

Browsing the map you see a row of nine barrows under 100 metres in length and reckon it’s worth investigating. What you find could be said to be madly underwhelming, and yet...

The Curragh is full of barrows, north of the motorway, south of the motorway, north-west of the racecourse, on the army rifle range, on the Kildare golf course, they’re everywhere. What was their purpose and who built them and when? Well there’s this on one of the ‘barrows’ on the golf course “Some of these possible barrows may in fact be lunging rings.” (Look it up – I had to.) Well you learn something new every day and the Curragh is very famous for horses.

But this group cannot be any of that other stuff. Aligned north-west/south-east, they are definitely there, small ditch rings with low central mounds. I struggled to see them, never mind photograph them, but was intrigued enough to persist. I can’t say they’re burial mounds with any certainty, but I’d recommend a visit if you’re in the locality.

Barring Cairn T on Carnbane East and Cairn L on Carnbane West, it can be said that most of the passage tombs in the Loughcrew complex have been mildly to severely damaged down through the ages. Most of this damage was done at a time before modern archaeological practice had come into effect, and not all of the serious damage was done by sheer vandalism – a lot of the damage happened during investigatory work carried out under the instruction of our antiquarian antecedents.

Of the four hills of the Loughcrew complex, Patrickstown Hill seems to have fared the worst (Newtown Hill/Carrigbrack has only one cairn on its summit and it looks to me like it’s never been opened). Of the three X cairns on the western shelf of the hill there remains but a few scattered stones, with the sundial stone at X1 the main reason for a visit. Destroyed Cairn Y was the purpose of our visit today. The tantalising, but sad entry on archaeology.ie is worth quoting in full here:

This cairn (Y) is on a rise of the fairly broad summit of Patrickstown Hill. It had already been removed when Conwell (1864, 376; 1873, 23) described it as the most conspicuous of the entire cemetery. It had a diameter of 33 yards (c. 30m) but its stone was used by the owner, E. Crofton Rotheram, in building field walls. Although Rotheram had antiquarian interests this cairn was not investigated prior to its removal. The monument is now an irregularly oval area (dims c. 30m N-S; c. 20m E-W) defined by an earth and stone bank (Wth 3.5-5m; int. H 0.4-0.6m; ext. H 1.16m), the irregular shape and form of which suggests that it might be quarry spoil. There is no evidence of any stones in an original position. It remained unplanted but overgrown within a coniferous forest that was harvested c. 2015.

On my two previous visits to Patrickstown I had approached from the car-park at the viewing point on the east side of the hill. Opposite here is a track that leads through the mixed forestry, the early part of which is a welcome change from the ubiquitous pine plantations. Sun dappled through the young beech trees as we set off, having first visited the standing stone. The track heads around the south and west of the hill before turning north and terminating in the meadow with the three X cairns. X1 and X2 were visible here today, but X3, a single kerbstone from what I remember, has been inundated by gorse and brambles.

Turning our back to Carnbane East, we headed up towards Cairn Y. As it says above, this area was harvested in 2015 but the terrain becomes steadily more difficult as you head up towards the broad-based summit. This boggy area was re-planted and there are saplings, as well as brambles and the left-behind detritus to navigate before any discernible cairn footprint can be found. Short trousers are not recommended attire for traversing this area.

And then on to the remains. I’ve visited all of the other cairns in the cemetery over the four hills, so this was a bit of a pilgrimage (there may actually be a fifth, elusive cairn in Patrickstown – for another day). What is left here is very discernible, and would be even more so if there was a bit of care taken. I got quite emotional standing in the middle of the remains, breeze blowing through the grass at the centre of the cairn as the sun beat down. Rotherham left enough for us to be able to make out the circumference, the earth and stone bank mentioned above visible, but whether there was ever a passage and chamber, we don’t know and can’t tell from what’s left. Conwell’s assertion that it was “the most conspicuous of the entire cemetery” is some claim and given the enormity of Cairn D on Carnbane West, I have serious doubts.

I’m glad I came here and I’ll probably never return. Cairn Y hasn’t much to show for itself, but you can tell yourself your own story. It’s one of those places where it’s hard not to regret what might have been or what once was. Indeed, of all the places I’ve visited in Ireland on my own megalithic odyssey, Loughcrew has had the biggest emotional impact on me. The whole of the landscape, the monuments therein, the exertion to reach some of them – all have contributed to a sense of wonderment and awe. It’s not a place that I decide to come to – the decision is already made for me, drawn back time and again. Cairn Y doesn’t need to have been the ‘most conspicuous’ for us to imagine that its builders knew what they were doing, showing a reverence for their environment that we have since struggled to re-find.

The most easterly of all the monuments in what you could call the Loughcrew complex. Park at the parking spot on the Kells to Oldcastle road where it crosses over the back of Patrickstown Hill.

The stone, 1.7 metres tall, is at the back of the grassy area, to the right of the forest track. It’s hidden from view in summer, but if you continue along the track to the end of the grassy area, there’s a slight track on the right. Go up here for 20 metres and the stone is on the right.

Slieve Beagh is a low, ridge-back hill in north Meath, close to the Louth border and north-west of the town of Slane. Indeed it can be seen from the top of the Hill of Slane, amongst a larger group of hills and aligned west-south-west, east-north-east. A road traverses the northern side of the hill in Rathbranchurch townland. Between that townland and neighbouring Creewood, in an area about 500 metres by 250 metres, is the Slieve Beagh barrow cemetery, mostly to the south of the road.

The updated record at archaeology.ie says there are 26 barrows here, along with 3 raths, 6 houses of indeterminate age (presumably bronze-age) and 2 hut sites, one of which was excavated in the 1960s and given a date from the neolithic.

I’ve been here twice before and on both those occasions was impressed by the views, especially from the road below the cemetery. It reminds me of Tara and the way the ground falls away to the west and seems to go on forever. There are also extensive views to the east but these are blocked in places by a large gorse hedge. The land on that side of the hill is cultivated whereas most of the barrows are hidden in the gorse in a sheep pasture.

The actual monuments are increasingly difficult to identify as more and more gorse takes over. Walking up the track from the gate, the first you see are two enormous, conjoined and flattened round barrows, their banks visible but their ditches are gradually filling. After that it’s more difficult to identify anything, except what seems to be a central, focal bowl barrow, over two metres in height. The graffiti-carved stone still sits atop this, but the carvings are weathering and the whole of the barrow might soon be inundated with gorse.

I like this place. Most of fertile Meath is under cultivation, but this hill stands out, wild and wind-swept. The mystery of the barrows drew me back and retains enough pull to make me want to return. Maybe some day the landowner might cut back the gorse, or it may catch fire, and reveal some more of monuments.

Saggart Hill/Knockananiller/Crockaunadreenagh/Knockandinny sits at the western end of the chain of south county Dublin Hills, the northern edge of the Wicklow mountains. Have a glance at the bottom of Sheet 50 of the Discovery Series OS map and you’ll see that this chain is quite the megalithic playground, peppered as it is with a fair smattering of red monument dots. It also happens to be on the edge of the city and consequently is a favourite spot for non-megalithic adventurers, both benign and malign.

It’s almost exactly 14 years since I last visited here and I was looking forward to seeing the slight remains of the passage tomb and the neighbouring cairn. From back then I remembered a large, overgrown Knockananiller cairn, with the Crockaunadreenagh passage tomb remains over the usual countryside fence. What I encountered today made my heart sink. The forest walks on the hill are increasingly popular and there are mountain-bike trails running through them. More and more people use the hill as an amenity and as a drinking place. As a consequence, there is now a concentration camp-like electric fence separating the cairn on the public land from the ruined passage grave, not 15 metres away on private land in the neighbouring townland. The message here is plain and simple – fuck right off.

It’s not often that one feels like giving up on a place – to do so would be to give up on humanity and the little bit of love that we get from the passion we have for these places, but the absolute, complete wreck that is Crockaunadreenagh and the disdain shown for its neighbouring cairn by the outdoor drinkers and the mountain bikers, almost makes one want to. If you’re going to be that mean-spirited to erect the aforesaid fence, however you may feel about the lumpen attitude of the general populace, well keep it; in fact shove it so far up your…

I remember a short debate a few years back with Fourwinds about the derivation of Crock in Crockaunadreenagh and I think Julian mentions it somewhere in one of the books, and Fourwinds saying it’s an alternative to cnoc, or knock, meaning hill and that that’s where he reckoned the phrase crock o’ shit comes from – as more and more of south Dublin gets opened up and landowners get more and more paranoid, it’s in danger of becoming just that. Apologies but I can’t say anything better.

The SMR entries for Dublin on archaeology.ie have improved over recent times. There are three barrows clearly marked now in Crooksling townland. These do not include the mound in my previous shots from 2013.

I did a flying visit to this barrow, on the eastern side of the Kiltalawn to Brittas road, opposite the aforementioned mound. It’s quite clearly a round barrow, with bank, ditch and central mound, though with lots of interference and overgrowth.

Not exactly spectacular, but worth hopping the fence for a quick nosey.

Cabin fever struck around 8pm last evening so I made a quick dash for the Shed Stone, slightly beyond the 5 kms limit set by the powers that be (6 on the odometer), but still a local monument. It is quite hard to believe that it’s been 14 years since I was last here.

There’s a parking space on the Upper Cunard Road, south after the brook (Trumandoo?) that you must follow to reach the ‘tomb’. I parked here, changed into my boots and headed down. The first time I was here (taken to it by Fourwinds – it’s not marked on the map) I’d gotten my feet soaked, the boggy ground of Glassamucky Brakes/Cunard unforgiving in Spring, but not today. The recent good weather made for easy hiking.

The monument is hidden from the road, maybe 350 metres down and on the northside of the brook. The beauty of the location, so close to the city, brings a gladness to the heart. And it’s ultra-quiet now, a few sheep farmers hereabouts tending to their essential work. There’s deer on the Brakes tonight, venturing further down the Dodder valley than might normally be their wont.

And then to the stone. It’s nestled above the brook on what seems like a levelled out platform, but there are a few of these on the way down and they may be natural. In fact, everything about the Shed Stone may be natural. The debate is still ongoing as to whether this is a tomb at all. The supposed entrance faces roughly south, towards the brook that babbles not 5 metres away, portal tombs and water being a generally accepted conjunction.

The capstone rests on two of the three stones beneath it. Healy says that these are three pieces of the one stone, split by the weight of the glacial erratic capstone, and I can see why he believes that. However, the underside of this capstone seems to have been worked to flatten it, though not into one sheer plane; there are two sections, the major one towards the ‘front’ of the stone. The rear of the ‘capstone’ rests on a fourth stone. There is the possibility that this small arrangement of stones were in situ and then the ‘capstone’ was placed on top of them, the assemblage being some sort of ritual monument and not a tomb. Maybe a fanciful theory, but an explanation for the working of the underside of the ‘capstone’. The natural groove around the ‘front’ of the ‘capstone’ adds to the theory that this stone was chosen, as opposed to to it being an accident of nature.

I spent a while here, drinking in the place. The colour of the day was leeching out as I headed back up to the road. Deer were heading south above me, back to the wilder hinterlands of Dublin county, and then the sun broke out over the back of Ballymorefinn, lighting up the hillside in an orange glow and I didn’t want the day to end. And then it was back to ‘civilisation’, and TVs and laptops, and pandemics.

We’d been up at the crowded Hill of Tara sites, open to the public and increasingly popular, and felt the need to escape to somewhere quieter. Rath Maeve (misnamed, like the monuments up at Tara) henge is on private land, usually full of livestock with the banks overgrown and generally as unsatisfying as Tara itself. However, not today. We spent well over an hour here and got quite a sense of the place, but as usual left with as many questions as answers.

It’s described as a henge on the SMR and is really rather massive, so you can see why some think it a hillfort. The interior is low dome-shaped and as a result, from ground level, it’s hard to see the opposite bank in places. The bank on the northern perimeter is the best preserved and, in mid-March, not too overgrown to appreciate. The southern arc has quite a bit of bank remaining but doesn’t rise to the same height as at the north, but, like at the north, falls away to a depth of about 4 metres.

The eastern edge of the bank has been flattened, with the modern road just skirting its edge. A modern field boundary cuts off the western sector from the rest of the monument and that portion was too overgrown to explore.

As mentioned above, the best preserved and most interesting part of the henge is at the north. There’s a gap just west of north with a clear view up to the Hill of Tara. The back of the bank here resembles a defensive rampart more than a ceremonial enclosure and the construction is impressive. That said, I still had the sense that this was a place of ceremony.

I can drive to within a 5 minute walk of this little tomb. It’s now more open and accessible than I’ve ever seen. So what better to do in these days of plague and isolation than to take the 10 minute drive in the social isolation direction, up into the low Tallaght hills? Well, like most on here, I’d do that anyway, and like most everyone else, hours and days of bewilderment are beginning to grind.

Someone has taken it upon themselves to clear the monument of gorse. There’s a hammock strung between the two trees to the north-east, and there’s the remains of a substantial fireplace in the quarried gouge in the same direction. The remains are opened up, the central cist, or what remains of it, are visible, and all the kerbstones are uncovered. It’s more than I that reveres this place.

The views across Tallaght, further across Dublin City and Dublin Bay and thence over to Howth are fantastic. Though what is still extant is relatively scant, you can see why the ancestors picked this site and put in the effort to give their dead a fitting tribute. The forestry to the south and west crowds the stones a bit, but the power of the place persists. LilyMae and I left a little less despondent.

Twelve and a half years since I was last here, it was different than I remembered. A massive capstone, a portal stone, what looks like a flaked part of the capstone split off from the bottom and some various possible chamber stones are what remains.

It’s one of those sad reminders of what once may have been, neglected, but in the end not wholly ignored – there were signs that we weren’t the only ones to check out the tomb.

Access is not as straightforward as I thought, though the monument is in a roadside field. Now is the time to visit – this will be overgrown in the summer months.

At the back of the church in Kilmainhamwood, this was a happy and easy find as well as being a bit disappointing. The stone has been roughly shaped into a cylinder, damaging the bowl in the process. I’d say this happened when it was dug up, having possibly been earthfast when the bowl was originally cut. The bowl is deep, full of leaf detritus, with some clear water at the surface. I rinsed my hands in the clear water, avoiding stirring up the goopy mess lower down in the bowl.

We’d been down at Staholmog earlier, where the stones have been removed, seemingly in the way of the crop growing in the massive field. Looking over the roadside hedge into the northern of two fields we thought that this stone had fallen to the same fate. I drove further to the next field at the south and looked up and down – the stone is marked on the map as being close to the road. I glanced over at the dividing hedge and there it was, probably as visible as it gets throughout the year. A fine, pointed menhir, 2.6 metres tall, surviving thanks to being incorporated into the hedge.

Loughanleagh is a ridge of large hills almost halfway between Bailieborough and Kingscourt in south County Cavan. According to the noticeboard “the mountain ridge forms a watershed between the drumlin lake district of Cavan to the west and the richer, flatter farmlands of County Meath to the east.” Along the nearly north-south aligned ridge are three cairns, set on the highest, most prominent peaks of the massif. They are all in different townlands and given a sub-site of their own here. There is also an ancient, now dried up sacred lake, the Lake of the Cures, Lough an Leighis in Irish, from which the whole area gets its name.

These two stones are on the OS map and are listed, with a description, on the SMR at archaeology.ie. It says there that they “may have been removed after 2005” and this is indeed the case.

Two fields in from the very busy Halls Road, south-east of Camlough, are the remains of what once could have been a very fine portal tomb. It’s probably not one of the most enticing sites, but the fact that there is a relatively fine cashel built right beside it makes it that little bit more intriguing.

What remains are the western portal, a full-size doorstone and the stump of the eastern portal, abutted to the wall of the cashel. There are what looks like an amount of cairn material around the base of the stones. Which begs the question: did the cashel buliders destroy the tomb and use the material to build the cashel? And if so, why did they leave what remains standing? Or was the tomb already destroyed before the cashel builders arrived, and they used the site because they believed it a place of power? Or maybe the full tomb was there when the cashel was built and was then destroyed in more modern times. Or finally, maybe the remains are not those of a portal tomb at all. Who knows?

The views from the site, inside the ring of Gullion, are pleasant – Camlough mountain to the south-east, Sturgan mountain to the north. The ground slopes up to the west, downward to the east towards Camlough itself. Not the easiest of access here due to the traffic on the road, but still worthwhile.

I found the stone pair in the graveyard up the road but couldn’t find this stone. There’s a new GAA ground in the place that it’s marked on the map, but the positioning could be wrong.

At the north-west corner of the field there is a service entrance to Punchestown racecourse. The gate is sometimes open but if it isn’t there is a hurdlable wall. Over this and back into the corner, the fence into the pasture field that holds the stone is easily surmountable. The hedging and fencing that line the road are impossible. (If you’re not into leaping the medium-difficult wall you can walk up to the actual racecourse entrance a couple of hundred yards up the road and come back to this point. The racecourse allows dog-walkers and strollers and is a popular amenity for the denizens of Naas up the road)

There is a footworn track from the field corner to the stone so people are still determined to visit despite the obstacles. The stone itself is magnificent, the views north blocked but those south-east towards the Wicklow mountains fine. An old info sign has been trashed and thrown into the battered enclosure, the cement that holds the stone up after it was re-ercted in 1934 visible but not too obtrusive.

Facing the stone with the racecourse entrance at your back, look to the right and there is a gap in the hedge. Over the fence into the neighbouring field and then through the ungated entrance. The hurdle of the fence is low to medium difficult.

The stone sits atop a slight ridge, over 4 metres tall and leaning to the west. It still has its original packing stones, continuing to do their job down through the millenia. Views all around are pleasant if unspectacular but this is still an essential site if your’re in the Dublin area.

Twice now I’ve gone in search of this tomb, twice defeated. The walk along the Ulster Way, under the gaze of the magnificent Benaughlin, is only a small consolation for the disappointment of not finding the sepulchre.

The tomb was excavated in 1882 by Wakeman and when the modern forestry was being planted was given enough room in its own little clearing. Alas, for us, this has now been overgrown completely, to an extent where even the more adventurous and determined are left completely defeated. The area in which the tomb lies has been left unmanaged for so long that when the forestry workers do make a move on it, the tomb is in danger of being completely destroyed. Shame.

Edit: [After some more research I think I may have been looking in the wrong place. Twice. Oops.]

There are 10 wedge tombs tombs in Parknabinnia townland, 7 of which are recorded in The Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, along with 1 court tomb, 1 passage tomb, 5 cairns, 2 unclassified megalithic tombs/structures and 2 cists.

In the neighbouring townland of Leana there are 5 wedge tombs (2 of which are recorded in the Survey), 3 cairns and 1 unclassified megalithic structure. Further north in Commons North townland are 2 wedge tombs (both recorded in the Survey) and a cairn.

Alongside all of this have been found prehistoric farmsteads and enclosures, a true prehistoric landscape that when you’re exploring around there makes you wonder what more it has has to reveal.

This landscape deserves much more than a cursory visit, but as can be seen from what’s written above, it doesn’t give up its secrets easily. I’ve been here three times now, but like much of the Burren, I can’t say I really know the place.

This was confusing. So there are 3 wedge tombs in Baur South townland, one of which is recorded as Cl. 26 in the Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, and there is one wedge tomb in Baur North townland, recorded as Cl 25.

The tomb with the co-ordinates of the main site here is one of those that is unrecorded in the Survey. It’s the tomb that was visited by Carl, and by myself. I’ve uploaded two not-very good shots of it.

The tomb depicted here by Bogman, CianMcLiam and Megaman is Cl. 26., the tomb with a mini-tomb within its chamber. I didn’t make it to that one today, but I did make it to the small, ruined one that is at the bottom of the farmtrack that Carl mentions in his fieldnotes.

Baur North, which I’ve seen mistaken for the barn-side tomb, can also wait for another day.

The landowner here is very proud of what he has on his land. There’s even a sign on the gate into the field announcing the presence of the Kilgraney Dolmen. The structure here is badly collapsed however. I struggled to identify any of the orthostats but I’m sure they have been plundered down through the years as there are distinct quarry marks on two of them. The babbling stream not 5 metres away from the monument is soothing. Access is downhill from the aforementioned farm gate and visitors are welcome.

I had an appointment in a hotel in Letterkenny and it finished earlier than I had expected. Usually if I’m traveling that far I’ll have done an itinerary and have my maps with me, but as I thought I’d be in the hotel until nightfall, I hadn’t bothered. Now I had about 2 and a half hours of daylight to spare so I typed in Drumskinny stone circle into Google Maps and headed off. It was 50 minutes away and was going to add 30 minutes to my three hour journey home but what the hell.

I headed out the Letterkenny to Ballybofey road but was traveling almost blind as I’d never been in this part of the country. I kept pretty much to the GM directions but peered over any hedgerows I could to see if there were any wayward sites. After about 25 minutes and heading downhill towards some forestry I noticed a bunch of upright stones beside a field wall about 50 metres into a field on my left. I was fairly moving it but jammed on a bit past and out of sight of the site. The speed limit sign I parked beside was in mph and as I left the car and headed back, there was one in kph – I was right on the border.

The border-line runs right through this tomb. It is not mentioned in the Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, Vol. VI, County Donegal but is mentioned in the Archaeological Inventory of County Donegal. It is very much a court tomb and is a wrecked mess that could do with a bit of tidying up. The remains of the court lie mostly in Donegal but most of the tomb, with an ante-chamber, a full chamber entranced through a classic pair of jambstones and a completely destroyed sub-chamber are in Tyrone. Indeed, the only online mention I can find for this calls it Garvagh, and places it in that townland in Tyrone. It’s mentioned in the inventory section of Tomb Travel, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency SMR number TYR 015:005.

Another of Waterford’s amazing sites left in a disgraceful condition, overgrown with nettles and thistles. We approached from the west, through an open gate and down a farm track. I wasn’t sure that we had found the right place until we were right on top of it, the substantial standing ogham stones hidden by the summer growth.

Once again I had a go at tidying the place up, giving the stones a bit of breathing space. The enclosure is in a large pasture field on a working farm and you would wonder had it had any visitors this summer. The monument is in state “care” but with the nearby Waterford Greenway now very popular, could this care not be more actual than theoretical?

Five stones stand at the edge of the cut of the souterrain, all former lintels or roofstones of the reasonably short passage. Steps lead down into the passage where more ogham stones line the sides. There are three unmarked roofstones remaining over the passage, two almost midway down the passage and one over the end of the souterrain. Most of the passage is made up of dry-stone walling.

Even with all the herbage, the power of this place couldn’t be dimmed. I was affected by the stones here and the remnants of the souterrain more than I would be at a lot of the ‘show’ sites along the Tramore dolmen trail. Which is not to say that I’ll be back anytime soon, if ever – but who knows?

We visited Ballynamona on a drizzly, mid-August day, a day untypical of the sunny summer we’ve had this year. Ballynamona is deep in the Waterford Gaelteacht, a place where the usual bi-lingual signposting is dropped and everything is in Irish only. However, this convention in turn is dropped when you get to the end of the driveable track, where one neighbour has seen fit to post a “BEWARE, ATTACK DOG LOOSE” sign right next to the last, tree-lined track that leads to the field where the tomb lies. This is very intimidating, and it almost worked, but I reckoned I would never come back here and I really wanted to see Ireland’s most southerly court tomb, so with a bit of convincing and coaxing of 9-year-old LM we opened the gate and headed up the track (in the end there was no attack dog to be seen or heard, signs like these judiciously used to put off the intrepid amateur archaeologist and the stoner hippy alike).

At the end of the track we reached a barley field that had been harvested quite a while earlier in the year and headed over to where the tomb lies. I had expected a fenced-in tomb in a clearing at the side of the field, judging from the shots here and elsewhere. What we found, eventually, was a bracken, gorse and bramble covered neglected mess. The fence is gone, or buried under the bracken, and the bracken and gorse has overgrown the tomb.

I was disheartened and disappointed. The gallery of the tomb was visible, but all the court stones were inundated. I took a few shots and started to head off, saddened by the neglect and seeming disdain. We reached the edge of the barley field and talked about how we’d probably never return – this is an isolated spot, not really on the way to anywhere. LM asked me why I bother and I said without the likes of us, these sites could be lost altogether (there was a faint track to the tomb from the barley field so someone does come here occasionally).

We turned back and headed through the jungle. Neither of us were dressed for the brambles but we persevered. Rooting around by the large stone on the western arm of the court I found the Bord Fáilte sign and its post, dumped there unceremoniously. I used this to tamp down the bracken around the gallery to give it some breathing space. I also found one of the staves from the fence which I used to bash back some of the gorse and brambles. I tamped down the bracken within the chamber/gallery of the tomb with my feet. And there it was, quite an impressive court tomb, with stones remaining on both arms of its court and a fairly complete gallery. Uncovered and opened out, the tomb regained a bit more majesty and we were grateful to the ancestors for leaving this place for us.

Leaving, I felt a certain sense of self-justification – this stone-hunting is not everyone’s cup of tea, it’s mainly the domain of eccentrics and, eh, stoners. It flashes into the broader consciousness occasionally when a spectacular like the recent stuff at Newgrange and Dowth makes the news. And then it’s forgotten about once again, left to the likes of LM and me to uncover once again, attack dogs in our own right.

Quick fieldnotes for Parknasilogue: This site is in danger of being lost forever. The land that it is on is being sold for housing development under the auspices of NAMA. The old thorn tree that used to stand guard over the chamber is gone and the site is inundated with brambles. See Fourwind’s shots here: megalithomania.com/show/site/16/parknasilog_kist.htm better than my own old ones on TMA. I couldn’t see into the impenetrable brambles to check if the tomb is still extant. In my opinion, this is to be added to a list of a few other endangered sites in the South Dublin/North Wicklow area, all under threat because of the mad dash for housing. Another example is at themodernantiquarian.com/site/1664/laughanstown.html where a new town is already under construction. Remember themodernantiquarian.com/site/1258/brittas.html

If this is what they say it is – the remains of a passage grave – then it is of the undifferentiated variety, and diminutive at that.

From the very small road and over the fence, south about 150 metres into the field and very visible is a hillock, about 3 to 4 metres tall. This is very possibly man-made. Exploring around it’s top there seems to be cairn rubble remaining. Maybe, when the excavators realised that they had disturbed an ancient grave, they had second thoughts and stopped their handiwork. But not before they had scooped out a sizable chunk of the southern side of the mound, revealing the chamberless passage.

What’s left of this speculative passage are about 12 stones, most in an alignment onto cairn T in Loughcrew, with the most south-easterly pair forming an ‘entrance’. Alas, were this an entrance, the alignment of the tomb would face away from Cairn T which would be behind the tomb to the north-west. So quaint theories may be just that, quaint but wholly incorrect.

All of the tombs on the hills of Loughcrew either align with other tombs to the east, or with the equinox sunrise in the east, so this ones orientation doesn’t exclude the possibility that this is a Loughcrew outlier, along with the mound at Bobsville graveyard with its megalithic art another kilometre to the south.

We traipsed up a waterlogged lane at the side of some forestry on the north side of the Slieve Bloom range. You never know quite what to expect on these little ventures, and when accompanied by two half-interested companions, trepidation that the discomfort might be a complete waste of time increases with proximity to the goal. This is one of those ones however that lives up to my middling expectations, with some awesome scenery and fairly magical atmosphere.

The first of the five barrows that we encountered as we approached from the west is named a pond barrow on the slightly dodgy entries at the National Monument database. It’s very small, quite eroded and relatively dry at the centre, though with the tell-tale rushes signalling that it could be quite wet in winter. You’d almost pass it by as your eye is drawn to the next in the west-to-east line that we followed. This is the most impressive of the five and the most obvious, described on archaeology.ie as a ‘mound barrow’ and “On top of high ground in mountainous area. Circular flat topped mound (H 3m approx. top diam. 7m; base diam. 15m) with circular depression (Wth 2.5m; D 0.6m) on top with evidence of stone kerbing around depression (possible collapsed burial).” The collapsed, dead thorn tree on the flattened top added to the atmosphere.

We moved over to the middle of the 5 barrows, a so-called ‘ring barrow’ and indeed it is surrounded by a ring of hawthorn trees. There is a clatter of bushes growing on the mound itself and it’s hard to make out, but, like at the mound barrow, there are some stones that may have formed a cist or chamber at one time.

In the next field over are the very large bowl barrow, described on archaeology.ie thus: “Located on top of high ground in mountainous area. Circular raised area (diam 16.5m; H 0.8m) enclosed by a slight bank (Wth 2m; ext. H 1m) and poorly preserved external fosse. Marshy raised interior is unusual.” Not far from this a little further east are the very poor remains of the fifth, unclassified barrow.

The records for these at archaeology.ie are incorrect, with the bowl barrow and the mound barrow inverted and the ring barrow description given for the most easterly, least impressive of the five.

We spent quite a while here, only taking our leave when the bullocks in the fields decided that we did have food after all and approached us expectantly.

I’ve scouted around this area before and always given up due to access issues. We’re just in the foothills of the mountains here, so there’s maybe a bit more paranoia so close to the city when it comes to strangers traipsing across private land.

I realised from the archaeology.ie map that the ‘tomb’ is actually fairly close to some forestry and there’s a car park in there not 400 metres from the site, so having given up on the Tibradden Lane eastern approach, I flew around to the Tibradden wood car-park.

About 200 metres south, in from the car-park you can walk though the thinned forestry and head north-west to the remains. The field here has been extensively quarried for gravel. I’m not sure that what I found is the tomb. It’s listed as ‘Megalithic tomb – Unclassified’ on archaeology.ie and there are no more details. The only other online mention that I can find is the photo on the link that I posted. I’ve given this a wedge tomb classification given that Kilakee and Kilmashogue are close by, but I’m not confident that it’s correct.

What does remain is overgrown and wrecked. There are some dressed stones and the most visible stones look like a capstone and a sidestone, part of some sort of chamber, though the capstone looks more like one from a portal tomb than a wedge tomb.

In his wonderful book, Inscribing the Landscape: The rock art of South Leinster wordwellbooks.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1607 Christiaan Corlett writes of the re-use and rediscovery of 3 cup-marked stones in Preban cemetery. We found 2 of these stones, and what is maybe a fourth, very small, stone with 2 cups.

Using the gazeteer at the back of the book, it was hard to locate the stones as they are both not in the same position as when Christiaan photographed them. I’ve only realised now that the third stone, the one that we didn’t find, named Preban 1 in the book, is illustrated also. Ah well.

I’ve followed the naming convention from the book, Preban 1, 2 and 3 and taken the liberty of adding the fourth, Preban 4, discovered by seven-year-old Lily-Mae.

A quick note here to say that these stones are in danger of disappearing off the radar altogether. I’ve never quite figured out why they are here in the first place, there being no ecclesiastical site nearby, and just the ogham stone up the road at Knickeen. But they are not looked after in any way, despite there being two stones of seeming great significance.

It’s hard to say when the better time is to visit here – spring-time when the vegetation hasn’t yet thrived but the ground is marshy and muddy or summer/autumn time, when the ground may have dried out a bit, but the plants have taken over.

My favourite of the lot, the one with six basins, is completely submerged – I guess I lucked out that day, 10 years ago when I first came across it. It is still a place that I will always stop by if I’m close.

Visited the neighbouring DSPCA today, 12/5/15 and couldn’t resist this. Seems that they may be realising what they have on their hands here as there was quite a bit of recent heavy shrub felling and the site is quite open. I don’t know if the DSPCA own the land that the mega-megalith is on, but they have marked it on the map on one of their hand-outs.

I always struggle to explain this place, and the scale of what may have once been a capstone (or may have been an over-ambitious and abandoned operation). The stone’s only rival for weight, as far as I know, is at Browne’s Hill in Carlow – much better known and valued.

This time I had my little companion with me and hope that today’s shots show some scale.

Imagine our disappointment having read this description – In level pasture. Stone (H 3.8m; 1.67m x 0.55m) is subrectangular in plan and irregular in shape, long axis E-W – only to find it now sadly fallen. Ah well.

I finally made it to this stone, Ballybought (Baile Bocht) wart stone, after 5 aborted visits, livestock in the large field always putting me off. The stone is about 200 metres into the field from the little bridge that fords the north to south flowing stream, on the eastern side of the small valley.

The ovoid bullaun dominates the large, metre and a half long boulder, at least a foot wide on its longer axis. I didn’t feel like testing its depth. There are very faint cupmarks on the boulder too. Lumps of quartzite speckle the granite. The stone seems to have been cut on its south-east edge, though many moons ago.

On leaving I realised there were livestock in the field still, hidden beyond the crest of the hill. Oh well.

I was heading south for Church mountain and glanced down to my right as I entered Blessington. Seeing the temporary fencing I quickly diverted and decided to check it out. And oh dear, what a mess! Already a neglected and overgrown monument, with a kids’ playground butted up to its west side, now the ignominy of a skate park to its east.

Sounding desperately like a killjoy to myself here, let it be said that the more playgrounds and skate parks for our kids, the better. But come on – allow the ancient burial site a bit of room to breathe. The beginnings of the ground work on the east side cut right into the edge of the external bank.

The whole project seems to have gone ahead with a lack of thought – what’s going to happen to the barrow now, given that the council has already treated it with such disdain? I get the feeling that they’d prefer if it just went away. Shame.

This is not listed in the SMR. As I ascended south towards the summit of Broughills Hill from the barrow in Johnstown, along the boundary line between Johnstown and Kiernans Hill and in turn Broughills Hill, I spied a large, rocky outcrop. Though I was making for the summit in driving wind and rain, I couldn’t resist investigating. The outcrop is made of huge earthfast granite boulders, but below it to the east is a seemingly man-made platform containing this intriguing monument.

I can’t make out what it is, so I’ve listed it here as a hut site/habitation site, though i suspect that it may be a burial/chambered cairn, ruined and lost to history, until now. There are lots of lumps and bumps in the small, 8 metre diameter area, some of which may be a chamber, or may be the hearth of an old hut site. In the north-west quadrant there is erosion leaving packed, cairn-like stone visible. The whole mound is about half a metre tall, rising to a metre in places.

A mystery, leading me to reckon that this ridge, leading down from Broughills Hill, has not been properly surveyed.

There are two listed standing stones in this small townland, west of the summit of the hill with the same name. I believe I found both, along with two other possibles. The terrain here is difficult – swampy, pitted, harsh and treacherous – boots a necessity if you wish to retain intact ankles.

All of the stones are being swallowed up by the peat. Of the four, the tallest, conical menhir is the only one that could be said to be definitely such. Another large, bulbous, craggy example, almost a metre and a half tall, is badly leaning to the south-west, but seems to have packing stones at its peat engulfed base.

The other two are similar, slab-like examples, one listed and said to be “Possibly a marker stone between the other Broughills Hill standing stone (WI009-030----), the Johnstown barrow (WI009-029----) and the Kiernans Hill standing stone (WI009-034----).”

Yet another Dublin curiosity, I’d never heard of this until I stumbled upon it here: irishstones.org/place.aspx?p=246 And what a nice surprise it is, nestled to the side of an, until recently, overgrown graveyard.

Rathcoole is supposedly named after this: themodernantiquarian.com/site/15924/newtown_lower.html the rath of Coole or Cumhaill, he of Fionn fame and is at the west edge of Dublin county.

I arrived and didn’t hold out much hope of getting to the stone as the walls of the church/graveyard are very high and the gate seemed forbidding. However, there was a groundsman there and I pushed through the gate no problem. I asked him if he knew of the stone and sure enough he led me to it. I asked if he knew much about it and he said he had heard that the tradition was to pass a newborn through the hole in a cleansing ritual, similar to baptism I guess.

The man was very friendly and showed me around the grounds – turns out that he’s a volunteer, doing the work to keep busy and doing a fine job, having cleared what was a seriously overgrown perimeter.

The stone, not even a metre square, sits there amongst the various relics of Christianity, a reminder of our pagan past, a survivor, pitted and pockmarked and tilting and still here, a small trace, or testament, to a tradition that remains despite all that time has altered.

My companion today was Ruth, a sometime or somewhat-interested megalithic explorer. This monument is on land that was formerly owned by her grandfather so it was a trip down memory lane to her childhood for her.

The monument sits north, high up on a ridge above the Liffey – there’s a lake down there now, made by the hydro-electric dam that is part of a scheme that includes another dam upstream that created the Poulaphuca reservoir.

The bank is very visible on the western side, about a metre high, but with parasitic beech trees adorning it. Yet again, as at many sites close by, Slievecorragh and Church mountain are the mother’s breasts, slightly east of south from here. The southern arc of the bank is flatter, barely visible in places, before re-appearing as we turn to the east and north.

The curious little domed mound is in the centre of the 35 metre diameter ring, but set in about 10 metres, about 8 or 9 metres diameter itself and about a metre and a half tall. There is a beech tree growing on its northern side.

The external ditch/fosse varies in depth around the bank, but is most profound on the northern arc where it is 1.3 metres from top of bank to bottom of ditch. There is an entrance feature here too.

There has been modern digging both on the southern side of the mound and in the south-eastern quadrant of the barrow between the bank and the mound. Overall, a very impressive monument, impressively set with extensive views to the south and west.

Kilranelagh Graveyard, in the wilds of Wicklow, has lots of ancient structures, not all prehistoric, but still ancient. They’re continuing to bury people here, and after what must have been centuries of neglect, the place is very well looked after and obviously well loved by its carers.

The stones that we are interested in are very neolithic looking, like the entrance portals and sillstone of a small passage grave, its last remnants, the rest now long gone. Yet these remain, and you’re supposed to pass the coffin between them before burial.

Nearby, within the graveyard, is a holy well, St. Brigid’s of course. Out the gate to the south, the setting sun bathes Mount Leinster and the Blackstairs in an orange glow. Leaving I came across two graves, one with a very rough-hewn stone with no inscription but with a small toy gun and 2 toy motorbikes, the other, the last resting place of Clive Mervyn Wynne, died 2nd April, 1976, age 6 weeks. This is a place of power and peace and of sadness.