ryaner

I wasn’t expecting much from this ruined mound and I wasn’t disappointed, at least not by the mound itself. What is it, what was its purpose, is it even prehistoric? I don’t know the answer to any of these, but it is in a prime location, high above what would have been the River Dodder and is now one of the Glenasmole reservoirs. Ballinascorney Gap directly west has a barrow and a cairn, Piperstown Hill to the south-east is a habitation site and has a cairn cemetery, and there are many other prehistoric places that would be visible from here had the views not been blocked by modern hedgerows. An intriguing spot, but what a slog to get to!

Piperstown is a place slow to give up its secrets. I pass it by every once in a while and wonder. Burl mentions it in his Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany in connection with site K, where a circle of 5 or 6 standing stones were revealed upon excavation.

Altogether there are said to be 8 cairns and 7 structures/hut sites on the hill. There’s also a pre-bog wall on top of the hill with 3 more cairns associated with it. Piperstown Hill is like a central locus in the area, with views all around. There is much more going on here than is immediately apparent, but I’ve just now discovered a map/plan of the site and intend to return soon before the heather and gorse really take hold.

I’ve been in this field before looking at the lumps and bumps and have said to myself there’s something going on here. It’s just up the road from me, less than a 10 minute drive. I’ve surveyed the archaeology.ie website for sites in my vicinity and this comes up as a “Cairn, unclassified” and has no notes.
It’s about 1.4 metres high, oval, maybe 6 metres on its longer axis, by 4 metres on the shorter. There’s a much-flattened ring barrow about 350 metres to the north-west and there are some signs of habitation sites/earthworks in the immediate area.
I’m not entirely convinced by this, though it’s hard to disagree that it is artificial – the stones that I saw on the western side of the cairn looked suspiciously like bedrock to me. Maybe this was incorporated into the cairn/barrow and there is a burial at its core.

A quick visit to Killakee wedge tomb with my daughter and a friend. There’s the usual trash about the area, a popular spot so close to Dublin. This, though ruined, is actually quite a good example of a classic wedge tomb. Double-walling is visible on both sides; much of the other structural stones are still there, though a more modern wall cuts through the front of the tomb. The presence of a massive beech tree in the south-west corner of the wedge does detract and distract. The ground to the east falls steeply away about 10 metres behind the tomb.

My plan for the day in Fenagh had included a visit to the court tomb in the neighbouring parish of Commons, as many of the standing stones and sundry other pre-christian monuments in the vicinity, and, of course, Fenagh Beg portal tomb and its attendant passage tombs and cairn. So far I’d been put off coming here by a combination of a local lass and Ken’s fieldnotes about the bull. It had lashed hail at the court tomb and I’d been attacked by hungry sheep, and the cluster of standing stones north-east of the village had proved utterly elusive. The best laid plans of mice and men…

I had earlier gone up the lane above and to the east of the tomb and had spied it across what now is a lake but is a stream on the maps. The field looked empty, but the very cool response that the local had given to my enthusiastic plan to jaunt across the private land had left me doubting the wisdom of such a venture. My companion and his dog had accompanied me on the fruitless leg of the standing stone search and now we were back in the centre of the village, not 300 metres due south of the tomb. So what to do?

My ventures out in the field have been drastically curtailed by the recession and the perpetual “f*** you, pay me” of my mortgage provider. So I’d killed two birds with one stone – visited my mate in Cavan town, and plotted an attack on Fenagh and its rich megalithic heritage. And here I was, on the verge of bottling the ultimate goal of my trip. Well, bollocks to that, as they say nearly everywhere. I spied a quick route over a farm gate, across an empty field where the remains of the first passage grave are – then it would be over another fence and across the field with the portal. I’ve done this type of manoeuver so often but never have I been cheered on by a friend and his dog. I said I’d be about 20 minutes and that I’d meet him back in the village and off I set.

I headed straight for the mound with the small chamber at its top. Because of the rush I was in I didn’t give this much time. The small chamber is box-like, resembling a small kist. It’s about a metre square and sits oddly at the top of the mound and gradually becomes visible as you cross the field from the south. Behind the mound is a fence/hedge and this cuts across the monument. Almost immediately over this is the second passage grave, a strange rectangular structure with a couple of stones from a chamber and some kerbstones on its north side. The odd thing about this is that it’s all raised about a metre above the field level, including the kerb. It was excavated in 1928 and “Cremated bone, six bone pendants, the head of a bone pin, and one quartz and two chalk balls were recovered.” Again, moving fast I didn’t give this much time either.

And then on to the main event: the ivy is really taking over here. The capstone rests precariously on one portal (the other portal, like the capstone itself, having been broken), the backstone and the eastern sidestone. The broken piece of the roofstone is a couple of tons in itself and the complete tomb itself would have been quite a construction. What really gives this place its character though is the mad bush that has parasitically given the tomb a full head of hair. However, from what I could see on my brief visit, this is not as charming as it used to be and some of the ivy trunk/branches are really strangling the stone. As the plant increases in size and bulk I fear it’s in real danger of pulling the already damaged and quite precariously balanced capstone down. All of the stone are of the same conglomerate that you find in Sligo and Leitrim and it’s really rather brittle and erosion-prone.

Having said all that, this is really a fantastic place. There’s an air of ancientness about the place with that really rugged, damp, loaminess to the surrounds. The view immediately north to the beginnings of Lough Reane is gorgeous. The people of the vicinity are aware of what they have on their doorstep but haven’t come up with a way to make the most of it yet, what with the tensions between private property and public monuments and the disgraceful lack of a public right to roam movement in Ireland.

I left here way too soon and took a few shots of the very small cairn in the corner of the field. A fascinating and undervalued place that maybe I won’t see again.

We pulled in to Fenagh and parked up at the still functioning Church of Ireland church. Just as we got out of the car, the heavens opened with an almighty hail storm. My companion had a dog and agreed that it would be better if he went for a stroll around the old ecclesiastical sites while I checked the court tomb over the road.

Once the hail had stopped I headed over. It’s not too far into the field and there was only one or two sheep in the vicinity. I headed down to the tomb and started to have a gawk. It is very prettily situated on a small hillock in sloping pasture. Just as I was trying to come to grips with its layout, attack of the very hungry sheep got underway. Suddenly, as if out of thin air, 100 sheep and lambs decided that I was daddy and that I had some fodder for them in these lean, hungry times. I’ve never had to retreat from a site because of sheep, but the racket they were making was enough to force me back without ever really having taken the time this tomb deserves. Ah well, there was always Elvis up the road!

A nice evening stroll through Killykeen Forest Park, from the northern approach via Killashandra. This is that rare monument in the republic – marked on the map of the amenity and now in its own fenced enclosure. The forestry will be re-planted but there is a sufficient gap surrounding it to allow it to breathe a little.
5 minutes up the track from the parking space are the de-nuded remains of a co. Cavan dual court tomb. There is still much of the cairn/mound material lying strewn about and both tombs retain much of their structural stones. The gap between the backstones of the tombs is quite large, maybe 8 metres, the courts of both similarly diminutive. The stones are all of the same conglomerate that is found in the locality.
I’m beginning to think that I’m better off going to these places on my own, as most people that I go with are only momentarily interested and I don’t get enough time to drink in the atmosphere. My companion here was bored within 5 minutes, so my visit was curtailed.

Large barrow on the top of Athgoe Hill, just about inside the county Dublin boundary. Athgoe Hill and Lyons Hill are the last, most north-westerly, of a series of hills/mountains that form an arc to the south of Dublin city.
Access to the barrow is easy as there’s a track up to the aerial/mobile phone mast. It’s quite henge-like, about 45 metres in diameter and also quite ploughed/eroded away. In fact the national monument’s database has this as an enclosure, with the remains of the barrow downslope to the north of here.

This is a very accessible, surprisingly intact, and slightly overgrown monument. I must admit that I was taken aback by the condition of the henge, having understood from previous reading that it would be barely recognisable when encountered.

A 15 minute stroll uphill from the forestry entrance leaves you just beside Lugg henge. The outer ring is roughly 30 metres in diameter, with an outer ditch that is a metre deep in places, especially on the south to west arc. The bank rises to a metre and a half in places here as well.

Inside this is a second ring with a visible ditch and about 10 metres in diameter. Much else has gone on here over the milennia as excavations show that this is a multi-faceted, multi-period site. I was definitely impressed by this place, hidden away as it is in the trees, but I had to leave rather sooner than I wished. Somewhere I would like to return to and contemplate its purpose more lengthily.

This was a bit of a slog, added to by my 4-year-old companion with equal measures of joy and impatience. It’s quite a journey from the last available parking space at the entrance to the forestry, and when you do get to the vicinity of the tomb it’s a bugger to spot as the ten-year-old pines completely hide it. It is exactly where it says it is on the map and if you have a bit of determination, you will find it – only leave any small children at home.

The forestry people had the good sense to leave quite a bit of space around the tomb when re-planting, allowing the monument to breathe a little. It’s a charming little place, but the views are becoming ever more blocked as the pines shoot up.

Much of the kerb and entrance is still standing on the west side of the tomb. The chamber, with its wig-like tree stump, is 1.8 metres by 1 metre by .6 of a metre high. There is slight evidence of a passage (I’ve often wondered on these small passage graves “Passage for who? The fairies?“) and some other structural orthostats. The whole of the mound is about 10 metres in diameter.

Quite a magical little place, probably my first and last visit.

I really liked this little monument. Said to be part of “a complex of prehistoric sites”, there’s a ring cairn two fields away that 4 of the photos here are of, and there’s a quite substantial wedge tomb down the hill. This ‘cairn’ is very barrow-like and has a fosse, probably created by the digging of the material that makes up the mound. The stones on the mound may or may not be part of a disturbance/excavation.

So to Bremore passage grave cemetery once again. The endangered Bremore passage grave cemetery. Five recorded passage graves (by Herity), a recorded fulacht fia, a recorded unclassified barrow and an unrecorded shell midden, all within a small corner of a small headland in the northernmost part of the county Dublin coastline.

We parked on the lane and headed into the cropless field towards the south-eastern mound. If this ever was a passage grave, it’s been totally ruined beyond recognition. The mound, along with the next one a little to the north and the one to the extreme west of the group, are only recognisable as anything prehistoric because the farmer has desisted from ploughing them into oblivion. These three have a couple of boulders each that may be parts of kerbstones, but all three barely rise a half metre above the surrounding terrain. They are all elongated, their longer axis pointing back towards the main mound.

The main mound is a large, circular cairn that seems to have been robbed out, as opposed to the ‘collapse’ mentioned in the Monuments Database entry. It reminds me of the chunk taken out of Dowth. I had hoped to be able to explore the chamber/passage area a bit more given the time of year, but last year’s brambles are too tightly woven and still quite vicious. Pity.

The tomb is less than 5 metres from the shoreline. We traversed our way down below the main mound and found a rather impressive shell midden. This looks to have been a feasting area, but the sea has eroded into the material and is in danger of washing it away altogether.

The last of the five so-called tombs is barely recognisable under all the vegetation, even though growth has been slow with our late Spring this year.

In the townland of Collierstown is this small barrow. It now lies trapped behind the ugly fencing of Bellewstown race-track.
This is the entry from the Arch. Inventory of Co. Meath:
Oval mound (dims. 17m N-S, 12m E-W, H 1.8m), disturbed by digging SSW-NW. Cist (ME027-029001-) found c. 2m W of mound.

On the way from Bellewstown to Herbertstown I nearly collided with these. They are not marked on the OS map sheet 43. Three large, squat megaliths sit there in the middle of a triangle that splits a y-shaped junction. They are said to be the remains of a stone circle on archaeology.ie but no other details are given. A nice curiosity, though I remembered seeing them on Megalithomania.com some years back.

Didn’t really want to approach this mound, though it is right beside a public right-of-way. The Delvin river here cuts through a small gorge and the mound is placed on a prominent shelf above this on the south side.

Another Dublin city curiosity. I have passed this mound/barrow so many times and said to myself, if that’s not a barrow then I’ll never know what is. I’ve photographed it maybe 10 times, but to no great extent as I’ve never had the confidence to put it up here – try as one might but there is no mention of it anywhere that I can find, either in print or on the ‘net (slight edit – wouldn’t you know, it’s on the national monuments database as a mound).

So imagine my surprise today as I brought my daughter to the playground nearby – there was the ‘barrow’ tightly surrounded by a temporary fence, with a mechanical digger not 10 metres from it and a woman in a hi-vis vest overseeing the operations.

I parked the car and headed over. I asked the woman what was going on. She said that works were underway to help with the drainage of this part of the park. It’s the site of the popular, annual garden show ‘Bloom’ and the area has become flooded in recent years due to our great weather. Oh I see, said I, and why is that lump over there fenced off? Well that’s a mound, says she, that could be very old. And are you an archaeologist, I asked. I am, she replied. So I took the plunge and said I was interested in that sort of thing and that for years I’ve believed it to be a prehistoric barrow. Well you just might be right, said she, but do you know the history of Ashtown Castle over there? Ah, I’m not really interested in that to the extent that I’m interested in this, says I, but thanks anyway, and off I headed.

So there you have it. An unmentioned barrow in the Phoenix Park where there have been other bronze-age burial finds.

Holy or sacred wells don’t do well on TMA – they usually get the ‘of disputed antiquity’ tag – so when on reading in Gary Branigan’s book, The Ancient & Holy Wells of Dublin, that St.Mobhi’s Well near Skerries had a “number of cup marks present on some of the boulders, pointing to possible Neolithic origin” I had to pay a visit.

The site is marked on OS sheet 43 at the right-hand side of a track in Milverton Demesne. The entrance to this contains a stile, and indeed 20 yards to its right there is a hand-written sign that says “Please use the stile” attached to some barbed wire. This barbed wire blocks off the old pathway to the well. After traversing the stile you need to turn right immediately and follow the old path, not the seductive track that we were fooled into taking, thus having to climb a thorn-covered wall and cross the stream that flows beside the well.

The old well is impressively, even megalithically, constructed. The huge boulder at the back of the well-house rests on some stones like a portal tomb. This is the only boulder that we could find that had anything resembling cup marks. To quote the book again: “These cup marks are said to be the finger impressions of the mythical Fionn MacCumhaill when he threw these boulders from nearby Lusk.” Most of the rest of the other stones were covered in ivy so we didn’t find any more that had cup marks, but the ones that were most visible looked like solution pits, though it’s hard for me to be categoric about that.
The stairs down into the well are are well-worked flagstones. As you descend, there is a bullaun in a recess on the right-hand side. This is a craggy old, shallow-basined example but is said to contain the cure (for warts, toothache, headache and disorders of the throat).

As we arrived at the well a robin fluttered out from the main chamber of the well-house. This well-house is quite crudely (in the most gentle sense) constructed. The walls are of boulders and support a large, flat capstone/flagstone. This has then been covered over with larger boulders giving the well-house a conical shape. The water had leaf and other detritus so I didn’t fancy a taste.

This is a site well worth visiting, with relatively easy access and parking by the burial ground nearby. My instinct says that the construction around the spring of the well is not ancient in the TMA sense. However, there are two christian crosses here, carved into two separate stones and looking like a sly attempt to christianise the site. How will we ever find out its provenance? I guess the only way is through excavation, but the attendant folklore about Fionn, the supposed cup marks, and some of the methods of construction here leave one thinking of pre-christian possibilities.

Kinda cheating here a bit as I didn’t actually visit the site – visiting strictly by invitation only. Lambay is meant to be rich in neolithic heritage – the site of an axe factory. Love to go there some day.

Now here’s a thing: I couldn’t get access to this as it’s on the grounds of a chocolate factory! I was told by the security guard that I might get permission and be given a guided tour if I came back the following day, Monday.

Here’s another thing: There is no mention of this in Tom Fourwind’s book on prehistoric Dublin and I had never heard of it until reading Joseph E. Doyle’s Ten Dozen Waters: The Rivers and Streams of County Dublin. Indeed, there it sits not 20 metres from the Santry river, just before it flows under the Malahide road. Doyle calls it a tumulus. It is mentioned on the Wikipedia page for the Santry river and it is on the archaeology.ie National Monuments database, number DU015-074-, added by Geraldine Stout no less.

So why isn’t it more widely known? It’s right there, less than a stone’s (cough) throw from one of the busiest roads in the north suburbs.

A solitary slab about 150 metres south-east below the wedge tomb. Is this the only surviving stone of a second wedge tomb? The Arch. Survey of Co. Donegal says that: “The 2nd and 3rd editions of the OS maps show two stones here but there is no visible trace of the second stone.” So maybe... but if so, why would the destroyers leave just one (or two) stone(s) standing?

A bitterly cold, wind-lashed day on a boggy hill two miles due east of Buncrana. Twenty metres into the field is Meenkeeragh wedge tomb, almost hiding away in the rushes. It’s survived all this time reasonably well and even retains some of its dignity amongst the monstrous wind turbines that unrelentingly whirl and whoop as we ponder the past and the future.

There’s quite a bit left to see. The gallery seems to be split into two chambers but I’m not sure if the dividing stone is not a slipped roofstone. The whole uncovered tomb is filled with rubble which seems to have come from the structure itself. The three stones that make up the portico/facade are really rather beautiful, the middle one leaning out from the tomb gracefully. Double walling is visible on both sides but more obvious on the south. Much of the tomb is still buried in its covering cairn.

The huge windmills do detract from the atmosphere, though the freezing gale that nearly blew us to hell put paid to much of our musings – and made obvious why this place was picked to help fuel the never-ending thirst that we all have for energy.

Re-visited this today and had a bit more of a nose around. I really doubt that this is, or was ever, a round barrow. It strikes me more as a ringfort or rath – it has that feel about it. However, there is a bank and ditch just a metre inside the tree/shrub-line so it could certainly be a flattened/robbed-out barrow.
It’s situated above the mill road on a natural, defensible hillock and is on the grounds of Stewart’s Hospital. There has been work carried out near it recently but it seems that due respect was given to the monument during construction.

I’ve been here many times and never once have I taken a satisfactory shot of the place. It’s on the left-hand-side of the track that you take to get to Ballymaice passage grave.
The forestry is planted very close to the edge of the ditch of the rath, but the west arc of the site is the most visible. This is yet another of those sites that I’d love to see cleaned up.

Ho hum, what have we here? I don’t rightly know but I loved the beach walk, the view across to Ireland’s Eye, and the freshwater (I think) lake on the landward side of the ‘mound’. Jealous of the owners of this place with their prehistoric mound and the beach over their back wall. Somewhere to visit on a sunny day after taking in the portal tomb in Howth.

200 metres down from Portmarnock train station is this suburban curiosity. What is it? Why was it put here? Will it last for much longer? The last can be answered with some confidence – at least into the near future with the over-the-top fencing that has been erected to, one presumes, protect it. The field it’s in is one of those places that looks like its ready to start the second the property collapse bottoms out. This one’s for the completists only.

Down an old muddy right of way is this 3 metre tall stone. For a couple of reasons this was my favourite site of the day. By the time I got to it, I was drenched and freezing, but forgot completely about that so taken in was I by the place.

I disturbed 3 donkeys, or Connemara ponies, on my way up to the place. I was the last thing they were expecting that day, given the dreadful weather, but on I marched regardless, though they stopped fretting when I gave them a wide berth.

And then to the stone, with its own fógra, perched on a small hillock or drumlin 3 metres above you as you first catch sight of it. The stone leans to the north, but is imposing, a crooked finger pointing accusingly at whatever.

There are many signs of habitation structures around this place, the most intriguing being the circular, beehive hut like building just 20 metres west of the stone. Other earthworks around the place confirm that this is an important site. If only the weather had been a bit better and I had had a bit more time...

Marked as a mound on the OS map, it’s hard to tell what this is. It struck me as either a. a ruined habitation site, maybe a hut site or something later, maybe iron age, or b. a ruined megalithic tomb. 400 metres south-west of here is an ogham stone, with the rath I placed on here 200 metres to the north.

200 hundred metres from Cartron mound, I couldn’t get close to this due to vicious barbed wire and livestock. It looks a superb example of its type but what is really intriguing are the large stones on its top. These resemble the wreck of a tomb from a distance and I left here mildly annoyed that I couldn’t investigate any closer.

When I first saw this stone from the road I thought: what a load of crap. It’s profile from above was square and it seemed to be little more than a scratching post. Down into the dip and closer it revealed itself to be quite a gem. From whichever way you look at it, you could be looking at a different stone each time. It’s about 2 metres high and wedge-shaped along its width. It reminded me of a piece of abstract art I may or may not have seen or imagined, maybe an early Picasso.

Ruined, roadside court tomb. I was surprised that nobody from TMA had been here before. There is still quite a bit of this tomb extant, with even a roofstone over the back end of the gallery. However, it’s in a cattle field and is unprotected. Some cairn material also remains and there are some stones of the court visible. That said, this is a wreck of a place, of interest only to those of us who’d travel a couple of hundred miles to say we’d been there.

Named as a wedge tomb on archaeology.ie, but not mentioned in the Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland. This is a sad wreck of a place, but maybe that’s because I visited on a wind and rainswept November day.
The round capstone sits above a tiny gallery/chamber, maybe a metre square. There is lots of cairn material about this chamber and the remains of a mound are clearly visible.

Roadside monument, south of Ballina, actually really just a cist, but you can see why it’s called a dolmen, here and elsewhere. The blocky capstone must weigh at least 30 tons and sits on top of two sidestones and a backstone, creating a small chamber.
It now resides in its own little enclosure beside a road that leads south-west from Ballina train station, surrounded on its east side by the ugly headquarters of the Road Safety Authority.

A not very strenuous walk from the parking area south of the peak (lots of scorch marks from the burning of cars, glass on the ground from broken car windows – park at your own risk) leaves you in the tangle of masts and fences that contains this ancient tomb.

If all the modernity wasn’t here, this would be a beautiful place, with views over the midlands plain to the whole of the west as far as the Slieve Blooms and further, north as far as the mountains of south Armagh, and over to the last of the Dublin/Wicklow hills around Newcastle. As it is this is a well-used place: mountain bikers, dog walkers (and their left behind dogshit) and the clatter of masts and buildings in varying states of decay.

It was a nice walk and the tomb in as unremarkable as I remembered, 3 structural stones visible, robbed out (or excavated) at the top, with no sign of a passage or chamber. It rises to a height of about 3 metres and there are some outlying stones on the west side that may be part of a kerb. I wanted to take in something neolithic on our walk today and was happy I came here.

Two court tombs, back to back but 5 metres apart, unlike Aghanaglack, a dual court tomb with only a stone separating the galleries. This place is all about place. Yes there’s the tombs, the northern one of which is like no other, but it’s where they’re at is where it’s at.

From Manorhamilton, a 5 minute drive to a gate, and a further minute along a track at the side of some forestry and it all opens up. The track remains drivable past the tombs but I parked just before and above them. Wild Irish peatland, in places eroded down to the limestone pavement, and views for miles all around. Benbo to the west is dominant, north-west into Sligo you can see Truskmore and Tievebaun. The plateau that you’re on rises to the south and it looks bleak in that direction forever.

I had to come here after reading Anthony Weir’s description of the tombs. It was their situation that captivated me however. The wrecks of both tombs take patience to work out. Weir says 2 chambers in the main gallery with 6 subsidiary chambers set into the cairn at the back of the northern tomb.
The southern tomb is less complex with a 2-chambered gallery. Both tombs have some remains of their courts.

I spent most of my time here just wandering about the area, over towards the old farmhouse, marvelling at the formations of the limestone, parts of which are crowned with half a metre of peat. At the end of it all I didn’t want to leave. A great spot to camp out in I’d say, though pegging the tent down might be difficult in this terrain. Wonderful place.

A stone pair, looking like a classic male/female combination, the male of which is now falling over like some aul-fella, held up by a small group of trees. The female is a blocky obelisk. I couldn’t get closer due to the river but both stones are close to 2 metres high.

I was in the area and had to stop by to one of my favourite sites in Ireland. I’d been using Anthony Weir’s Early Ireland – A Field Guide and Estyn Evans’s Prehistoric and Early Christian Ireland – A Guide and both mention that the site is important and may well date back to the mesolithic. Leaving that to one side, this much later stone deserves some sort of care and attention. I hadn’t planned on coming here and wished I’d brought some secateurs. No-one in authority seems to care for these stones. There were offerings in each of the bullauns under the cursing stones. Fair enough – maybe it’s left to us to clean up the site, those who believe that these places are worth looking after. Alas, these stones are on private land and I’m not qualified to caretake them. I wish I lived closer to here.

The Donegal inventory has this as unclassifed, gives the wrong co-ordinates and has a description that I can’t recognise from what I saw. So maybe I was at the wrong place – well, not according to the OS map, Sheet 17.
There are 3 remaining stones that have the character of stones used in portal tombs but they could be the remains of one of the other classifications. I was on my way somewhere else when I stopped by here.

There are 5 megalithic tombs marked on OS sheet 16 in this part of north county Leitrim, all within a distance of 300 metres of each other, so I believe this merits the megalithic cemetery tag. I don’t have the Leitrim Inventory so I’m guessing on 2 of the tombs, one I couldn’t get close to, the other having very scant remains. By my estimation there are 3 wedges and 2 courts.
(It’s worth mentioning that a local archaeologist told me that there may be more tombs in the vicinity and that I could see other tomb-like structures from a distance but didn’t brave the bullocks in the fields)
Tomb 1 is the best preserved, a Burren-esque wedge tomb. Tomb 2 is what I believe to be a very ruined and overgrown court tomb. 3 is a collapsed Burren-esque wedge, 4 a reasonably preserved court (I couldn’t get close but its gallery seems to be extant) and 5 a very ruined wedge.
I didn’t stick around very long as the usual unfriendly Beware of the Bull(shit) sign was up.

I was driving along here on my way to look for the court tomb up the road when I spotted this. Now I like a good rath so I do, but this deserves more than the regular small red circle that marks it on OS sheet 16. Given that they are the most common Irish monument (there are probably about 300 on sheet 16 alone), you could tend to ignore them – they’re everywhere. This might be a costly mistake however – places like this what I presume to be a multivallate, iron-age ringfort/cashel/rath, are well worth stopping for and are quite spectacular.
The presence of Benwiskin can’t be ignored here. It rises up to a not huge height of 514 metres, but does so in rapid time – no gentle rolling hills here – you get vertigo just looking up at the sheep on the 450 metre line.
The fort is a mixture of earthen embankments and dry-stone walls, quite crude in comparison to say Staigue, but much disturbance has occurred here over time. There is a ramp-like approach on the south-west side that circles around the circular fort, visible from the road, but it was hard to make out the entrance in the short time I spent here. Inside the fort itself are many collections of rubble, but as I said I didn’t give this place as much time as it deserves. Will I ever return? I’d love to.

At the base of a belltower, in a modern churchyard in Ballaghnatrillick (Béal Átha an Trí Liag). If it were a cube, it would be approx a metre cubed, if you know what I mean. The bullaun is centrally placed, 15cms diameter and I don’t know how deep as it was filled with rubble, seemingly deliberately.

Marked as a cashel and bullaun stone on archaeology.ie, I could find very little here due to the summer vegetation. Was this occupied by the people who smelted their iron in the court of the tomb up the road? We’ll probably never know. :-)

What an amazing place! Promonotory forts are places I’d usually bypass, and I hadn’t planned on going this direction until I was recommended both here, and Cloghcor portal tomb where I’d been earlier, by Martin and Joyce Enright.

Inside the fortifications in a mild gale I couldn’t help but wonder at the competition and violence that forced the inhabitants to build this godforsaken fort to make their last stand.

The smallish fort itself is protected to its east by the 57 metre high hill of Knocklane. There is a narrow strip on its north side that allows easy access to the fort. South of the hill would be inaccessible to invaders except by sea and the peak of the hill itself must have been used as a lookout post.

The first (or second last) line of defence is a double ditch, split nearly in half by a causeway. The inner, deeper ditch, is about 4 metres from bottom to top. Either side of the fort are cliffs, though as with the hill, the south would have been much harder to penetrate, hence the building of a bank/wall on the north side.
Between here and the last line of defence there are many signs of habitation structures. And then come the mounds of the final last stand. After here there’s nothing save a few metres of ground and then death.

A site that really caught my imagination.

On land owned by Leo Leyden, a farmer more interested in archaeology than farming (according to his friend Martin Enright), this, though ruined, is well worth visiting. The massive portal stones, both over 2 metres high, remain upright, with the rest of the stones collapsed onto the chamber.

I couldn’t get close to this due to livestock in the field but there seems to be quite a bit of the structure left. According to Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, Vol V, County Sligo, it’s a “… small example of the central-court type.”

Heapstown is not as roadside a cairn as I had expected from previous reading. It’s close to the road but you’ll need to enter the field with the Sligo Heritage signpost and approach the cairn from there.

Heapstown brought to mind the 3 other cairns of similar size that I’ve visited: Ballymacgibbon, Knocknarea (Maeve’s Cairn) and Cairn D on Carnbane west in Loughcrew. Most every mention of Heapstown includes the probability of it being a passage grave, but given the Cairn D experience, and the fact that the stolen material mentioned by Gladman has so far revealed no signs of a passage entrance, I’d say the possibility is way less than 50 50.

This is a massive construction though. The kerbstones on south-east side are impressive, bulky and robust and a major job to erect in themselves. The pile of the cairn must contain the field-clearance of 100 acres or more.

I’d love to see this monument opened up a bit, some of the vegetation cut back, revealing it in all its grandeur.

Right by the side of the N4 Dublin to Sligo road, about 5 kms southeast of Carrick-on-Shannon.
A small crannog, approx 10 metres in diameter and about double that distance from the shore.

At the side of the (newly widened) road in Ballinascorney, I’ve passed this umpteen times and never recognised it. It’s quite hard to spot, but very distinct when you do. From bottom of fosse to top of mound is maybe a foot, and the bank is quite clearly visible too. It’s very circular and maybe 8 metres in diameter, though cut into on the side closest to the road. I would call this a disc barrow or a ring barrow (as it is called in Monumental About Prehistoric Dublin by Tom Fourwinds, from whence I got my directions).

In the grounds of Tallaght Priory, beside the Friar’s Walk, you will need to get permission to visit these stones.

I was surprised by the size of the bullaun stone having only seen close-up photographs with no idea of scale. It’s an irregular shape conglomerate, maybe roughly two thirds of a metre squarish. The bullaun is about 20 cms wide and 15 cms deep.

Beside it is a stone described by Patrick Healy in All Roads Lead to Tallaght (South Dublin Libraries) as: “…a large granite stone with a hole through it. The hole is narrower at the ends and in the middle, somewhat like an hourglass, but is now screw-threaded as stated by O’Curry. Beside the hole is a round hollow.”

I was kindly brought here by Brother Michael. Thanks.

This mini-Beaghmore is simply marked as stone circles on the OS map. Burl says that there are 5 circles here in all (wish I had read the book before I set out), 2 of which are immediately apparent 100 metres over the gate and into the field. These are the only 2 that I saw today, not knowing that there were 3 more in the vicinity.
Like at Beaghmore, all the stones of the circles are low, none over half a metre tall. Burl says the northern has 10 stones and the southern 14. The metre and a half tall standing stone is offset to the east.

The best site on the Burren, bar none. I arrived there at 6.30pm on the 2nd last day of August, a miserable, misty, gloam-laden Clare evening. There wasn’t a sinner in sight, the last of the tourists back in their ranches long ago, so having the place to myself was a treat.

The 1km walk from the road is relatively easy going until the final push to surmount the plateau where the fort is situated. You’ve already descended into the ravine that protects the southern side of the fort only to have to ascend what is probably the easy approach, now and back when the fort was in use.

It’s handy to have a look at Hencken’s plans of the place before getting there. I think if I ever go back, which I’d like to do, soon, I’ll photocopy and laminate these as they really are detailed and expansive. Standing on the viewing platform, having traversed the decking that follows the outer wall from south to east, I could have done with a bit of a guide. But then my attention was pulled to the ravine, the yawning maw that made this place particularly defensible.

Hencken found 2 souterrains, both of which led down to exits in the wall of the cliff here. Without his plan to hand I couldn’t make out where these are.
The rain started to teem down so I gave the inner enclosure only a very cursory scout. The walls are still impressive and don’t seem to be overy restored. What with all the summer growth, it’s not so easy to make out the remains of the outer structures of this tri-vallate fort. By now I was soaked to the skin, one of those ‘from the outside in and the inside out’, so I beat a retreat to the car, defeated by Cahercommaun and its splendour.