ryaner

Another enigmatic suburban Dublin mound, this time in salubrious Foxrock. It’s in an estate just to the left off Westminster Road as you come in from the N11. The developers bypassed the mound and wheeled their road around the back (south) side of the monument when they built the estate.

Like the tumulus in Coolock this is tree covered. However, unlike Coolock, access is simple as it sits on the edge of a public green space in the Cairn Hill estate. It’s oval shaped (longer axis being east-west, about 20 metres long), about 2 metres high and reminds me of a barrow. It seems much higher on the south side, but this is because of the previous mentioned road construction.

I visited on a work day in the lashings of rain and took the accompanying shots with my iphone. I’d thought of coming here for quite a while but had procrastinated, thinking if there was anything here, access would be impossible. Not so.

Easy to find down a laneway in this townland, it’s a large boulder, over a metre high with the large basin cut into the top of the stone.

The water was rancid in the .35 of a metre diameter .17 of a metre deep bowl. I was taken aback by, on arrival, my companion immersing both hands into the bowl and stirring up the stink. I asked him why he did that and he said because I can. Good enough.

Small cairn in this megalith rich townland, about 2 metres high and oval shaped, north-south on its longer axis. Some of the material is being eroded away by animal hooves, but we couldn’t make out any structural material. One for completists only.

The sea mist made visibility here on the day we visited near impossible, down to about 20 yards. There’s another cairn in an adjacent field but we couldn’t get access to it (we didn’t try that hard).

This cairn has been very much robbed of its material, in the process of which 3 cists were uncovered and excavated. The cairn has since been left alone.

The northern cist is a classic box, with six flagstones making up the structure. There’s a small hole at the top western corner and I stuck my hand in and took a few shots. It was a tad unnerving, given that the cist would make a perfect hidey-hole for various critters. Another cist is visible towards the centre of the mound, but not as accessible as the northern one. We never found the third amongst the vegetation.

You can drive right up to this mountaintop cairn, though I suggest you wait until the cloud clears, unlike us who drove up in maybe 10 metre visibility and a force 10 gale. There is a huge mast up here, hence the road, and the howls as the wind blew through it added to an already spooky atmosphere.

The cairn, said to be a passage grave (see archaeology.ie entry) is about 3 metres high. Much of it is now grass covered, though there are patches where its true nature is still visible. There are quite a few larger stones around, though I couldn’t make head nor tail of these, battling as I was with the driving mist of low cloud.

I would say that the views from here are spectacular but we couldn’t see to confirm that. As it’s a driveable climb, I may re-visit here some day to check.

I’d been to Carbury Hill before and not visited the barrows. The site is really a barrow cemetery – I counted four, but there may be more under the gorse as the hill drops away to the west.

The main barrow is huge and its ditch hasn’t silted up too badly over the years. Indeed, it’s almost 2 metres deep in places. The diameter is about 30 metres and it has two satellite barrows within another 30 metres of it. There’s also another small mound/barrow about 120 metres to the south with the ubiquitous trig point plonked on it.

From the main barrow, there would be views all around had the gorse not taken hold so vigoursly.

I’d spent an hour looking for this stone about three years back. After that failed visit, Tom Fourwinds stumbled upon it and I’d been meaning to visit for quite a while.

This was our first site visit of the day and we were delighted to see that it had a small black cat/kitten as a sentinel. The basin on this one is huge, maybe a foot across. It’s cemented into the boundary wall, above the small tributary of the Liffey that flows past the front garden in suburban Clane.

The friendly landowner convinced me not to go out to this site and it is completely overgrown. It’s marked as a holy well on the map but as a bullaun stone on the National Monuments Database.

The lady said that there are some Americans interested in the site and that they are going to do some work there in the near future, tidying up the site and freeing up access. I asked could I come back next summer and she said sure.

(I’ve posted this here as the folklore is worth relating)

Two small bullauns in a field that has an old burial ground beside it. There’s a small structure here too that may the site of an old family burial plot. For the second time today we were met by a very friendly and knowledgeable landowner as we were about to take our leave.

He said that he had the whole history of the vicinity and I asked had he family in the burial plot. He said no, that he was a catholic and I said so the site is protestant. He said yes. I explained that I was interested in stuff before all that and that the bullauns were maybe from that era. He said aye, the druids and the pishogues (pisógs in Irish) and that he wouldn’t touch the stones. A lovely man again – we’d still be there had we not made our excuses.

When I first knocked at the door of the house and asked for the bullaun stone of the lady of the house, I was met with curiosity and puzzlement. Then I mentioned the wart stone and she pointed over my shoulder and laughed. Just then, the man of the house came out (they were just finishing their dinner – taken at lunchtime in many houses in rural Ireland) and accompanied me over to the stone. He had lots of tales of the many people who come here from all over Ireland, and the world, for the cure.

He related a story of a neighbour’s boy, a three-year-old that had been to the Mater hospital “up in Dublin” with warts that were covering his hands. The doctors did their best with surgery and medicine but still the warts grew back. Somebody told the parents of the stone and they brought the boy here, washed his hands in the water that collects in it (I asked if he ever puts water in the stone and he said no, the water is only ever what collects naturally) and the warts went, never to come back.

He had other tales of a burial chamber on his land, water divination and the hanging of a priest on the road at the front of his property. He also told me that the structure beside the stone, and the little enclosure that the stone rests on, were built around the stone and that he would never dream of moving it. A very friendly and accommodating man.

We asked for permission to visit the rock at the small cottage on the right hand side of the lane as you head down. We were met with suspicion and hostility and told that no, we couldn’t visit the site. I asked why was that and the old farmer told of how many people had come and damaged the fences and crops around the stone. The field that you would have to cross is too wet to be a tillage field so half of his argument was bull’. I explained that the people who had pissed him off previously maybe didn’t have the same respect or reverence for the site and that me and my four year old daughter would do our best to leave his place exactly as we found it. I pressed him a bit, and felt then and feel now that if I had pushed a little further, he’d have relented, but I wasn’t up for the argument, annoyed at his small-mindedness and suspicion. I’m not in Donegal that often and will probably never come back this way again. Shame.

Known elsewhere as Meelaghans, this is actually in Kileenmore townland. When we eventually managed to get to the small copse of trees where the stone is, I was hugely disappointed to find that it was no longer there. First thoughts were that either it had been dug up and carted off (unlikely, but you never know) or that it was buried under the nearby pile of manure.

We moved over to the other copse 100 metres south and found the single bullaun. The basin is set into an earthfast stone about 3 metres long and is quite substantial. I was still flabbergasted by the absence of the other stone and I didn’t give this too much time.

We headed back to the nine-hole stone copse. I just couldn’t believe that it wasn’t there any longer. Rooting around I noticed a curve in the soil that looked like the lip of a bowl. No way – could it be buried? I knew that the stone was about a foot below ground level so I got a stick and started digging and sure enough, a bowl/basin re-emerged. So this is how bullauns get lost – neglected and forgotten about, the bowls fill up with soil and detritus and eventually they get grassed over.

Paulie attacked the digging with vigour, re-finding 3 of the large basins. I just hadn’t the heart, thinking that the landowner doesn’t give a rats and that the stone will get covered over again. I was annoyed and angry and just wanted to get out of there, curious bullocks adding to the tension I felt. I don’t know what to do about this situation – petition for the stone to be brought into state care? Not a very likely proposition at present.

Now a stone pair, but once said to have three stones, they are aligned north-east/south-west. Both stones are over a metre tall and are about two metres from the road and in what will be the front garden of the newly built and for sale bungalow. We didn’t stick around here for very long, in a rush to get to Letter court tomb.

Castleruddery never looked better than today. The farmer really looks after the site and the grass was newly mown, leaving the circle a tad sterile, but I’ve imagined it as a ceremonial meeting place that would have had days like this in the bronze age, done up in all its finery, awaiting the guests for whatever ritual was to be performed.

The circle of stones is really quite wrecked, with the remains of smashed stones in the centre of the lot, and others strewn near the entrance. The bank of the henge rises quite steeply in the north-east arc, well over a metre, almost obliterating the exterior view of some of the orthostats.

Like at Boleycarrigeen later on this day, 4/9/13, we lolled about in the sun, drinking in the atmosphere, admiring the huge quartz entrance stones and hugging up the energy of the place.

Boleycarrigeen was great today, 4/9/13, still opened up with views all around. There is an old farm track to the south of the circle that brings you conveniently to within 150 metres of the stones. Bracken still grows inside and around it, but a bit of tamping down of this reveals the monument.

I’m always awestruck with the presence of Keadeen dominating the place, but appreciated the views across north-north-west to Brusselstown. We dozed around the circle in the late summer sunshine, kicking back and chilling before a return to the city.

There are 5 bullauns that I know of at Brittas – a single, two doubles (one of which is broken), one with five basins and one with six. We managed to find the fiver and sixer and the unbroken double. I know where the other two are but I couldn’t be bothered to find them as the under- and over-growth was so dense.

I love the six-basined stone. It’s one of the most graceful pieces of prehistoric sculpture that I’ve come across. It easily rivals the bullaun stone at Kilbeg. Every time I pass by here I have to see it, and yet it’s in danger of being swallowed up by the earth that it springs from. The stone, like the five-basined “hand print of St Lawrence O’Toole” is earthfast. The nearby stream regularly fills the basins and silt builds up, giving damp-loving plants an ideal spot to take hold in. This could easily completely cover the stone in time as no-one seems to know they’re here, let alone look after them.

I’ve checked the National Monuments Database and there are just two stones recorded here – the broken double and the five-basined stone. The last site visit here was in November 2012 and there would be less vegetation at that time so I’m wondering how they missed the other three. Oh well, maybe somebody will notice this in time.

Very accessible standing stone in the forestry here, close to the Glen of Imaal. On the day we were there in early September, 2013, the army were practicing their artillery fire – made us feel relieved to live in a peaceful country.

The stone itself is really rather beautiful, partially covered with a red lichen and heart-shaped. It’s well over two metres tall, and aligned east-west on its longer axis. The southern side curiously seems the more ‘hidden’ side, craggy and pitted as opposed to the flat northern side. The Ogham is in the north-east ‘corner’ and reads MAQI Ni/eLI (’of the son of Níall?’)(According to the Arch. Inventory.)

In a steeply sloping field that leads to the top of Trooperstown Hill, the stone slopes with the field and the basin is placed near the top. The basin is relatively small, dry today, but when it fills with water, it can be seen that it overflows and has caused a channel to erode away on the lower spine of the rock.

Earthfast bullaun in the so-called ‘Church-field’ in Trooperstown, one deep basin and one shallow. This is another of the prayer-type stones, probably with folklore attached that the basins are the impressions of a saint’s knees, made while he prayed. Maybe he had one leg shorter than the other, but that’s only speculation.

When we arrived at this there were three local kids sitting on the bench beside it. I got out of the car and started to take pictures. One of the kids asked me why I was taking pictures of the ‘bird-bath’. I explained that it was an ancient stone, probably carved well over two thousand years ago only to be met with a vacant stare and an “Oh”, followed quickly by all three heading off. It’s ok, I said to myself, maybe you planted a seed in one of their minds and they’ll develop an interest in their ancestry and culture. Yeah, right.

One of four bullauns in Lickeen townland, this is semi-submerged with only one of it;’s two basins partially visible. There was a thorn tree here until recently, but no more. The farmer leaves this patch of his pristine field alone. It would be nice to see the stone dug up some day.

The first signed bullaun stone that I’ve seen – I’m guessing that this was dragged here to its current location before they drowned the valley for the reservoir. I’ve seen shots of this semi-submerged, but we were here after a fairly decent summer and the lake was about 5 metres away.

I was searching for a bullaun stone south of Roundwood recently and the woman of the house told me of this stone – seems it’s well known in the locality and has ‘offerings’ in the basin. the stone itself is quite large, a metre-and-a-half long, by a metre high and three-quarters of a metre wide. The basin is, fairly typically, set off centre towards the west end of the stone.

We crossed the field to this stone, not knowing that there is a path along the reservoir to the other stone down by the lakeside. This is the better of the two at Knocktemple, the basin cut into the slope of the stone giving it one deep arc and one shallow. It’s bang in the middle of the field, just west of the old church site.

Slowly getting eaten up by the surrounding vegetation, the 24 cups on this earthfast boulder are the most distinct of the 4 cup-marked stones in the vicinity of Drummin, beside Keocha’s Brook.

Said to be a ring barrow, I guess that’s as good a name as any. Herity says that “The form of this site is similar to that described in the OS Letters as the ‘Rath of Cumhal”, giving the nearby town its name, Rathcoole (old Fionn again).

It’s on the southern slope of Windmill Hill, about 300 metres down from the road. The overall diameter is 80 metres, with the internal flattened mound about 30 metres across. Both fosses are better preserved on the south-eastern quadrant, the two almost a metre and a half deep.

I’ve seen double- (and triple-) ramparted raths before, but never a double-ditched barrow. It’s a thing of structural beauty, slightly spoiled by the nearby pylon and truncated on its western arc.

I had parked badly here and may have come the attention of the locals so I was a tad uncomfortable and didn’t stick around to fully appreciate this site. Still, another Dublin (the Kildare border is about 200 metres away) monument that I’d only heard about very recently – and one of substance at that.

Boherboy, from the Irish Bóthar Buí – yellow (maybe gold) road, has this stone pair that I pass regularly. Lily-Mae and myself stopped by today after having visited the barrow in Newtown Lower. The grass hadn’t been cut nor grazed in a while, leaving a golden brown meadow for Adam and Eve (yeah, I know) to bask in.

The male pointed stone is about 1.3 metres tall, the blocky female slightly taller. They’re aligned roughly east-west. They suit each other and one cannot imagine them separate.

The landowner showed up while we were here and was extremely friendly – these semi-urban stones are visited regularly and I had expected that he may well be pissed off with the damage to the gate, but no. He was here to see if it was worth cutting the grass for winter feed.

This monument is one I take for granted but I appreciated its beauty much more today.

One of two known stones that have cupmarks in Downshill townland. This is the easier to find, over the hedge from the road. However, if approaching from the north, enter the next field to its north and walk to the the gate about 100 metres down.

There are 8 worn cupmarks along the highest ridge of this metre long stone. The Sugar Loaf just peeps over the horizon line to the north. There are said to be more cups down the south-east side of the stone but I didn’t make them out.

The other stone lies almost due east of here, but as the farmer was working with heavy machinery nearby I didn’t try to find it.

These two stones, one single and portable and one a triple bullaun, are in the isolated townland of Ballard, above the Avonmore River and north-west of the peak of Trooperstown Hill. The single bullaun stone has been damaged some time ago but is a little gem in itself, a Wicklow granite stone with a weathered brown look.

The triple bullaun, a glacial erratic, is thought to be in its original location, now incorporated into the wall at the gable end of a cottage. It’s quite a tall stone, well over a metre when you stand on the road, and the bowls are not immediately apparent as you stroll by.

On the day I visited all three were holding water, one with some type of seed floating within, all three quite magical in their beauty and simplicity. Two are set quite close to each other to the south, with a natural channel connecting them – the other, the largest, is the one with the seeds in the photo.

Quite a journey to get to if approached from the Annamoe to Laragh road, through the forestry tracks and all, but very well worth a visit. I did knock at the cottage but there was nobody home at the time.

I had never even heard a whisper of this site until today, when, as I was going to visit a friend in nearby Delgany, I poked around on archaeology.ie and low and behold, there it was. Giltspur, from the Irish Giolspar, has a cup-marked stone, “…18 weathered cup marks are scattered across the highest point…“.

After looking at the satellite shot and the OS map and noticing there was a discrepancy between the two, with large buildings showing up on the latter and not the former, I didn’t think that it would be an easy find. There was another site right on top of it – a so-called “designed landscape”, “possibly a tree-ring”. Never heard of one of them either. Anyway, sure it was worth a look.

So off we set, turning off the N11 at the first Greystones exit, turning right at the first roundabout and then the 4th exit at the second, into the retail complex (the new buildings on the OS map) and a hard left into the delivery entrance, around the bend and into the car park. This little slip road points directly at the monument – we just had to ascend the very steep, man-made scree slope, 40 feet up and then over a fence.

And then there it was, not 100 feet into the field. Could it really be that easy? The earthfast stone, nearly 3 metres square and standing proud of the ground by about half a metre and sloping eastwards to disappear underground, is at the centre of that designed landscape, a very henge-like ring. The cups are very worn, almost completely weathered away, with only 3 really visible (I didn’t bring water with me, but given previous experience I’d say the panel would come out with a bit of the old side-flash).

The ring itself is strange, almost 20 metres diameter, with traces of a ditch on its outside, and deliberately planted with oak trees. Inside the ring, beside the stone, there is a block of red quartz. There are also the remains of a campfire and the usual discarded beer bottles and cans.

The views from the stone would be extensive, were they not blocked by the ring trees and other plantations further out, many hills that have prehistoric remains being visible.

I mentioned to my friend that we had been here on the way to her place. Oh Giltspur, she said, that’s well known around here – it’s the old name for the Little Sugar Loaf mountain (on which the site lies). After I told her of the signs of partying at the site she mentioned the presence of white witches around there. Ah bless.

So, a cup-marked stone inside an embanked ring that has been planted with oak trees. Archaeological monitoring nearby “did not reveal anything of archaeological significance”, so maybe the ring is modern, possibly thrown up and planted by the previous land-owners. Who knows?

I didn’t expect much here today, and I wasn’t disappointed. This poor battered stone now rests on 3 stones, held there with mortar, and used as a flowerpot. It’s in the grounds of Kilcoole church where it’s been since it was rescued by the parish priest over 50 years ago. Liam Price’s notes from 1959, shown here, tell the sad tale.

Two bullaun stones within 50 metres of each other at Sroughan. Both formerly earthfast and pushed to one side, the first can be seen from the road, the second a little trickier to spot. Coming from Kilbride, after the left turn for Carrig (with its numerous megalithics, including a wedge tomb) the road veers to the left in an easterly direction as it heads towards Lacken. Immediately the road straightens out, the view over Blessington lake opens up and the two stones are in this first field on your right.

Down the hill in a corner is the first stone, a granite boulder a little over a metre cubed with some damage to it. The shallow basin is on top and is pretty forgettable in comparison to some of the stones in the vicinity.

The second stone is in a hedgerow in the next field down. It took quite a while to find and after a discouraging bang from the electric fence in the field (I assumed there would be no current as there was no livestock in the fields – bad mistake). It’s very overgrown with brambles and particularly vicious rose-hips. The stone seems to have been damaged when it was dug up – about a metre and a half long by a half a metre wide, with the large, more interesting, basin at the more hidden end. I didn’t feel up to doing battle with the plant-life so I’ll have to come back in the winter and see if I can get a better view of the stone and its basin.

Here’s a hint when going bullaun stone hunting in the summer – don’t wear shorts. Even though it looks from the map that the stone is easy to find, by the time you get to the bottom of the field, through the barbed wire fence, by the nettles, over the brambles and into the dry stream bed, you may not have any legs left, and what you do retain will be bitten to bits by little bastard bugs.

The Ballyknockan Wart Hole hasn’t been visited in quite a while, at least 10 years I’d say. We approached the site coming from Valleymount, through Ballyknockan itself, and on to the parking spot north-east of the village. If you look along the entrance to the parking spot in a straight line, the stone is directly in front of you about 400 metres down through 2 fields. However, there is an easier way – walk back towards the village to the next field on your right, climb the gate and go to the very bottom of this. There’s a barbed wire fence here and it’s overgrown behind it. The field boundary continues here and over that is a stream. About 40 metres further behind the fence is the stone.

When we did eventually find the granite stone it was overgrown with moss and brambles, and the basin was full. After a quick tidy up the large oval basin was revealed. The water and detritus in this stank to high heaven. I reckon it would cure more than just warts. It felt good to find this, a kind of triumph, as nobody else seems very interested in it and it’s in danger of being completely forgotten.

And so to Seefin once again… carrying an extra 3 stone more than the last time I was here. There’s a few places on the way up where I thought I might not make it. Dear me, I felt a bit of a disgrace. Was it enough to make me do something about it? Well, I’ve tried over the last while to get out there at least once a week, but Seefin is a challenge, and it’s not the gravest of challenges either, so while I was glad to be back, I looked over at the cairn on Sorrel Hill and promised myself that I’d ‘do’ it yet!

We had looked back down the hill at some hillwalkers below us and determined that we wouldn’t be overtaken – no pasaran! Arriving at mama Seefin I dropped my bag and headed inside, climbing down through the collapsed chamber roof and into the passage itself. I get emotional here, enclosed in the dampness of this slowly crumbling sepulchre, the beauty of the corbelling in the subsidiary chambers and at the passage entrance, before the roof rises to the imagined height of the collapsed central chamber.

I’d fretted before about Seefin, threatened by well-meaning but misguided excavators, as well as insensitive barbecuers lighting their fire on the sillstone. A short conversation with the hillwalkers who told us of the time they arrived to find some arseholes on their scramblers riding all over the tomb didn’t re-assure me.

We had a good root around this time. The opportunity for vaginal re-birth at the entrance to the tomb is something I never pass up, even in my newly more portly state. I did think ‘what if i get stuck?’, all the way up here etc. but still squeezed through.

The complexity of the construction of Seefin never ceases to amaze me, and that it was done at such a height all those 5 thousand years ago adds to its mystique. The commitment of the builders to construct and leave behind this memorial, this intricate structure, and then to maybe seal it up and leave it there, on top of the hill at Scurlocksleap, says something about our ancestors and their way of life that leaves me wanting to find out more and more and more.

Rathnew is a large rath, with a deep embankment and fosse and a smaller, conjoined section about half its size on its western quarter. Not much remains of the houses that once stood here, but there is much of intrigue to make the megalithic adventurer happy.

In the western ‘annex’ is a circle of low stones, mostly embedded into the ground, some proud of the ground by about a maximum of 20 cms. It’s about 5 metres in diameter with a standing stone at its centre. This stone is about three quarters of a metre tall and is a place for offerings, coins of varying worth on the day I visited. MacAllister notes it as a “dolmen-like stone”. Like a few places on Uisneach that day, it had a magical air about it. It also must be pointed out that the ring is probably modern, as mentioned elsewhere and it doesn’t appear in MacAllister and Praeger’s plan.

The annex has two entrances, at the west and south. The defensive works here are impressive – an outer bank, a fosse (now darkened and alley-like under the covering trees) and an inner bank. The fosse continues onto the bigger part of the rath at the north, but starts to fill up fairly quickly in this sector.

Slightly north of east, there is an opening, with two seeming jambstones or gate stones. South of the entrance the fosse clears out again. Inside this large rath there are the remains of habitation structures, one of which MacAllister and Praeger excavated and left with quite an extensive plan. In its western sector, before it meets the annex, is a souterrain, now filled in and inaccessible. Pity.

This is a fascinating place, somewhere I’d like to explore in greater depth, and intend to do so now that I have the plans of the place.

I arrived at the car parking spot at the southern foot of the Hill of Uisneach, not really knowing what to expect, wondering about access and trespass and all that. There’s an official sign outside the entrance that lists some of the monuments on the hill. Past this and at the farm gate entrance is another sign saying that Uisneach is a working farm and that permission to enter the site may be gained by ringing 087 2576434. Please respect these wishes.

I called the number and got through to a voicemail, left a message about my intentions and headed in and up. Immediately in front of you as you ascend is an ancient trackway – to the left is the modern path/track – guess which one I took. Some way up this my phone rang – it was David Clarke, the landowner. I explained to him my interest and he readily gave me permission. I continued on my way, heading for what is marked on the OS map as two side-by-side raths, one of which I had read has a souterrain. The two raths are in fact conjoined, part of an intriguing, complex habitation and multi-period site. I have just today got a plan of the site from when McAllister and Praeger excavated the place back in the twenties. I will attempt to describe this site in its own individual fieldnotes, but this first time here I had only a cursory scout around the place. As I rooted around I spotted a 4 by 4 arrive over by a yurt-like structure and thought I’d better go over and introduce myself.

The driver was the landowner, the aforementioned David Clarke. After the usual pleasantries he showed me some of the monuments. He also gave me a flyer from last year’s Festival of the Fires (cancelled this year to allow the farm and the archaeology to ‘recover’). The flyer has a description and some folklore of some of the sites and a handy map with all the main monuments on it and a suggested walking tour. Before setting off on this i checked out some of the remaining artworks about the site. The Button Factory stage still stands but is showing signs of dilapidation – hilltop weather not being conducive to wooden structures.

I started my tour proper just by Lugh’s Lough, so-called as legend has it this is where the harvest God Lugh (Lunasa) was drowned, before being interred in Lugh’s tumulus, a barrow to the north-east. David said that the whole tour would take about an hour and a half. I guess that’s for people with half an interest – I would suggest half a day at least to TMAers.

Just west of the lake are the remains of a cashel/dun. It’s very overgrown back there, but the walls reminded me of the Clare cashels. Further west of here is the highest point of the hill with its cairn, unfortunately named St. Patrick’s Bed. It’s ruined and has a trig point plonked in its centre (ho hum). You can see landmarks in 22 of the counties of Ireland from here, allegedly.

South-west through two fields is the Cat Stone, Aill na Mireann (The Stone of Divisions). This is a huge crumbling glacial erratic, enclosed in its own henge. There is some doubt as to which came first, the stone or the henge – I haven’t seen any excavation notes anywhere, but I seriously doubt that the stone was moved by anybody/thing but a glacier. This is the sacred omphalus of Ireland, the centre of the kingdom of Eriu, the heart of the mythical fifth province of Mide. Descending through the thorn trees in the field with their rag offerings towards the stone, the heavens opened up. I was able to shelter and remain completely dry in the hollow of the crumbling stone. I felt cocooned here, unfazed by the weather and utterly blissful. This is a special place.

As with all the monuments, I wished i could have stayed a bit longer, but there was still so much to see and I had to be in a friend’s near here for dinner in a couple of hours.

I moved on over to Finnleascach’s well, a natural spring at the base of another rath. I took a sup here, thirsty despite the rain. This is said to have once been enclosed by its own earthen bank. The water was steadily trickling, but given that I was on a working farm with plenty of livestock, I was a little unsure of it. The rath has quite a large, prostrate stone in its flattened interior. I believe that this may once have stood.

I moved on again, back up to what is described as the ‘ancient palace’, the conjoined ringforts. I scouted around there some more and then headed up the field to see if I could get a better view of it from higher ground. No such luck, but there was still Lugh’s tumulus, over the wall in the next field. This is marked as a barrow, but it doesn’t have any external ring or fosse. It rises to over 2 metres high, and the views to the east are extensive.

I was on the last leg of my visit to Uisneach and at this stage I didn’t want to leave. I’m not a great vibes person, nor do I go in for the legendary stuff too much (though this is changing the more I find out). Uisneach still has me in its grip 5 days later. I can say that I was blown away by the place, but I can’t tell you exactly why. None of the monuments, bar Aill na Mireann, are all that spectacular. Yet, the feeling remains that this is a special place, far more powerful and interesting than the more famous Tara.

David Clarke seems to understand what is in his care and is not ashamed to exploit it commercially – see the link to the Festival of the Fires website – but I got the sense from him that he’s one of us, maybe not a TMAer, but someone who cares about these heritage sites and wants other people to care about them too.

Sometimes you just go somewhere on a hunch, and as I passed the sign for Almoritia church on my way to Uisneach, I just had to turn off and have a look. That there is a Norman motte there was an added incentive.

The motte was a huge tree-covered monstrosity, impossible to photograph to any satisfaction, but weirdly impressive.

Through the church gates for a quick nose and what’s that over there? A bullaun stone rests there, a metre long, with one deep basin that can hold only a little water as it breaks the inner side of the stone. What a charmer it is, like a lump of conglomerate cake, pushed to one side and usually ignored. Not today…

Westmeath was full of surprises today, and this was one of them. Just over the wall behind a memorial to local patriot and poet John K. Casey, is this really rather nice ring barrow. It’s small but perfectly formed, as they say, almost perfectly circular, about 10 metres in diameter. What with the small turlough-like lake to its east, grass grazed about a month ago and the perfect height, the fosse not in the usual silted-up state and the mound not ploughed out, this was the best example I’ve seen so far of this type of monument. This part of Westmeath has these in abundance here just north of the Hill of Uisneach.

Massive barrow in Coolnahy – I’d have liked to have spent more time here but I had another destination in mind and the bullocks in the distance had spotted me and were making moves my way.

I’m guessing about 30 metres diameter, internal fosse a metre and a half deep in places, mound still much in evidence and not ploughed out or eroded. It sits atop an enhanced natural platform and is a brilliant example of its kind, many of which litter (literally) the Westmeath landscape around here.

Square profiled, pole-like standing stone visible from the road to Ballymahon from Mullingar. Packing stones visible at its base and I’d guess it’s around 1.2 metres high. There’s what looks like a cairn in the same field, about 100 metres away, with many other lumps and bumps around. An old church and cemetery are 200 metres south-west.

Who’d have thunk it? Cappaghjuan, the tillage plot of Juan, in the middle of the Westmeath countryside. Surely the Juan must be some skewed anglicisation of a Sean. Anyway, a stone slab a little over a metre high, all alone in its field a couple of miles from Uisneach.

Howth Demesne, with its monstrous capstone, has to be one of the unsung greats of Irish tombs (maybe it’s not all that unsung, but it feels that way). This was my second visit here and I was once again stunned by the absolute madness of it. I struggled to explain to my companion how it was possible to construct it.

If the capstone did come from Muck Rock cliff (and from where else could it?) and was rolled here, they’d have had to have come past the front of the tomb and rolled it up from the back end as the front of the tomb does point directly at the cliff-face (that is if that’s the way portal tombs are constructed). The capstone has been flattened on its underside and at its front, and it’s entirely possible that the stone was rolled from Muck Rock, up a platform/ramp at the front of the tomb, which was then removed once the capstone rested on the portals, doorstone, sidestones and backstone, to reveal it in all its majesty.

You can’t help but wonder when the capstone fell (if a capstone falls and nobody hears it etc...) and also admire the builders who undertook this project all those years ago. The over 2 metres tall portal stones were a job to erect in themselves. Much of the other structural stones seem to have almost exploded under the weight of the collapsing and collapsed capstone. There’s a tiny ‘Dolmen’ signpost at the back of the golf-course that points the way down the path to the tomb – quiet, understated, and completely the opposite of what it leads to. I love this place.

A promontory fort as opposed to a hillfort, there’s very little evidence of any remaining ramparts. The walls of the lighthouse grounds and its facilities seem to have been built in the most obvious position, across the narrowest part of the neck of the promontory. Great sea cliffs and their winged inhabitants make this interesting – otherwise you could take a pass and not really miss anything.

Not exactly the top of the world, and not even the top of Howth (the remains of the cairn on the Ben of Howth are higher), but still as close to floating as I’ve experienced recently without the ingestion of dubious substances. The remains of the cairn are secondary here – that the small cist-like chamber is frequently used as a hearth for boozy campfires seems insignificant given the stunning views all around. As has been noticed elsewhere, Lambay floats above Ireland’s Eye, which in turn seems to float above Howth harbour. The view along the neck of the isthmus, across the lush vegetation below in Howth Demesne is spectacular. The Ben of Howth hides much of Dublin Bay to the south, but the mouth of the Liffey is visible, and the city itself sprawls away to the south-west. Awesome and well chosen spot.

This one was easily spotted from the road as it nestles beside the field boundary. It lives up to the expectation as you cross the field.The slipped capstone is huge, held in a near vertical position by the remaining portal and what appears to be a doorstone. The other portal is missing. Both sidetones and the backstone are still there and this would have been a pretty classic Irish dolmen had the capstone not pushed the backstone outward and fallen onto the back of the chamber. Maybe this happened when some fecker robbed the missing portal.
We spent a while at this one, amused and bemused at its incongruity there, stuck in a time-warp in the middle of some fairly prosaic pastureland.

Maybe there was once a cairn here, but it ain’t here now. Did they really destroy the cairn to build the wall that encloses the site like bawn wonders? Bizarre.

Scant remains on the top of Garret Hill. A long, low line of rubble makes a rampart of about 150 metres, aligned north/south onto the passage tomb over the field wall. There’s another very faint line at right angles on the northern end. There are probably (hopefully) more remains about the hill, but I couldn’t find them. I was happy to be up here anyway – it’s just above the contour line where things start to get wild and untamed and sheep thrive.

I was expecting a bit more from this given Healy’s notes below. However, most of the souterrains are now backfilled again since his excavations 122 years ago. You can just see the corbelling of one, the second as he describes it.
We had traipsed up the right-of-way lane just off the Johnstown to Freshford road. The rath is enormous, thoroughly overgrown (especially now in mid-June) and utterly compelling. The inner ditch is over 5 metres deep in places, the south-western arc being the most accessible. There is the remnants of an entrance here too. I can’t guess the diameter, 50 metres could be close, but it may be much more. This would, in my estimation, have been a ‘high-status’ (dreadful term) habitation site. It’s yet another of those places that could be marketed (yikes) to joe public as it really is impressive and even held a fascination for my not very interested companion.

We approached this monument from the north via the ‘cairn’ in Clomantagh (Mount Garret). In fact, this is in the same townland. There are no notes that I can find on this passage grave anywhere. No archaeological inventory has been published for Kilkenny, nor has the survey of megalithic tombs emerged for this region. Someone even mentions it as a wedge tomb, but given its situation at the top of Mount Garret, it’s more likely a passage tomb.
There is what looks like a passage semi-exposed down the middle of the mound, aligned roughly east-west. There are also what look to be passage roof-stones, some in situ, some cast aside. Two peculiar stones protrude above the remaining cairn by about .75 of a metre about midway down this ‘passage’. There is much cairn material still here, but you do get the sense that much has been robbed away also. There is, again what seems to be, a subsidiary ‘chamber’ on the south-side of the passage with no roofstone and the chamber filled in and some orthostats visible.
It’s in a great spot with views all around, the best being to the west and south. I doubt if anybody has visited this tomb for prehistorical reasons since bawn was last here.

Harristown has changed a bit since I was last here, 5 and a half years ago. New restrictive barbed wire was in place blocking access, and the sign with the phone number urging you to call and ask for permission to visit the site was gone. We were in Waterford city for a short while and had some spare time so I thought I’d show an enthusiastic friend one of Ireland’s little gems. Arriving and finding the new disposition didn’t put us off and soon we were kicking back, basking in the sunshine and pondering our ancestral past.
Last time I was here much of the views were blocked by late morning mist. Not today – the tomb builders certainly picked their spot, slightly back from the end of a north-south ridge, views to the distance for almost 300 degrees. And I’d say equal that onto the tomb from all around. We thought from up here of the families that were involved in the construction of this bronze age passage grave – the landscape much changed now, bungalows and farms dotted around, working the same land that sustained the tomb-builders.
Harristwon is one of three undifferentiated passage graves in Waterford that are said to owe more to Cornish entrance graves than to Irish passage graves. Trade between there and here is not difficult to imagine and the passing on of construction ideas maybe from Brittany to Cornwall to Waterford is not a leap to far.
simond’s aerial shot of the tomb describes it better than any words ever could – however, note the 2 passage roofstones between the passage and the kerb at the top (actually the west ‘side’ of the tomb). Coming across the remains of graves like this I often wonder at the haphazard form the denudation/destruction takes. Why those particular stones and not the 2 left in situ?
As we took all of this in, somebody arrived in a 4-by-4 and went about his business at the enclosed masts and aerials at the other end of the ridge. This turned out to be the land-owner, who was not a little pissed off that we were on his land. It seems that Harristown is a popular spot and that some visitors are wont to bring wire-cutters to gain access. This explains all the new, unwelcoming security features. He told us that plans and work are in train to allow access to the site, with fenced-in walkways and an enclosed, ‘sterile’ space around the tomb. I guess this is progress, but I couldn’t help being glad that we’d got here before all that kicks in.

Laughanstown is yet another tantalizing Dublin place that doesn’t give up its secrets too easily. Only a dedicated stone-head would bother with it really, but a little search on t’interweb produced a couple of articles about the excavations here and the immediate vicinity, prior to the Cherrywood extension being built. There were protests campaigns at Carrickmines Castle around this time and this area was mentioned. All that remains of many multi-period sites including burnt mounds, kilns, raths, enclosures and cairns is this intriguing wedge-tomb and an adjacent, small cairn.

The site is doubly enclosed, first by a semi-permanent wooden fence, and then an inner ring of concrete filled oil drums. Between the outer perimeter fence and the actual wedge tomb there is a pond in the north-east sector and a cairn in the south-west directly opposite it. The whole of the site is very drastically overgrown with brambles and is extremely difficult to peruse. The inner core of the tomb has a depression where it looks robbed-out and there is a new ash tree growing on the northwest side, directly on the cairn of the tomb. Some cairn material is visible and there is one granite orthostat still exposed on the mound.

This would be a phenomenal place were it looked after, if you could ignore the embankment that holds the motorway slip-road, with views east to the Irish sea at Killiney Bay and west onto pastoral Ticknick Hill. It epitomises the frustration that many of us feel – modernity and economic concerns butted right up against our ignored prehistoric past and much of the area “preserved by record” only.