Pano centred on the north-east and the Mournes, with Carlingford mountain emerging from the reluctant cloud.
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ryaner
Almost 5 metres tall and a diameter of 23 metres, I’ve looked at this from the M1 Dublin to Belfast road on many an occasion and said ‘some day...‘
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Slieve Gullion to the north-west from on top of the cairn.
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Pano from on top of the cairn looking from almost north to almost south with both Carlingford Lough and Dundalk Bay visible, the Cooley peninsula stretching south-east into the distance.
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Looking north-east towards the Mournes over Carlingford Lough from the top of the cairn.
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Not much left but there may be more in the mound.
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Looking west at the front of the tomb with Slieve Gullion in the distance.
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Pano of the Clontygora wedge tomb looking south back towards the Cooleys.
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Looking over the anomalous stone group back towards the main tomb.
Edit. This is from the Northern Ireland Sites & Monuments Record: The owner of the land on which the Clontygora Court Tomb [ARM 029:011] has erected a circle of small stones in a field nearby and has built a larger standing stone into the field boundary. These look authentic but are NOT antiquities. It is not known where the stones came from originally.
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This arrangement of stones is about 200 metres south of the court tomb. I can’t find mention of it anywhere except Fourwind’s who thinks it’s modern and Anthony Weir who says it’s the remains of a second court tomb. There are six set stones and three loose boulders and they seem to me to be probably an ancient arrangement.
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This pair of courtstones are just to the right of the entrance jambs and show the flair of the tomb builders.
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The stone of the big man is 2.9 metres tall.
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According to tradition (OS memoranda 5439 C) this is the ‘Lia Lingadon’, the stone of Lingadon, herd of the cows of Dictoire, Cu Chulainn’s mother.
from The Archaeological Survey of Co. Louth
Looking back east towards Dundalk town.
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Looking west towards the inner enclosure where the circles once stood.
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A pano of the site, taken from the top of the possible remains of the bank to the south.
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From archaeology.ie
Class: Stone circle + Embanked enclosure
Townland: CARN BEG
Scheduled for inclusion in the next revision of the RMP: Yes
Description: Situated on a slight SW-facing slope. Wright (1758, vol. 3, 9-10, pl. 3) records and illustrates the remains of two concentric stone circles enclosed by an earthen bank with an external fosse. Outside this earthwork is a further stone circle enclosing all the other monuments. All the features were open to the E in the eighteenth century, probably because they were damaged by an avenue leading to Carn House, which is marked on the 1835 edition of the OS 6-inch map, and which now leads to the clubhouse of a golf course. There was an entrance, undoubtedly original, in the earthen bank at W, but both internal stone circles may have had an entrance at NW. Morris records (1907, 1, 4, 61) that the monument was completely removed at that time, but he probably sought it in Ballynahattin townland.
However, a text analysis revealed that Wright placed the monument ‘on the Planes (sic) of Ballynahaitinne’, not in that townland as such (Buckley 1988, 53-4). The site is now recognised as the cropmark of a complex enclosure identified from an aerial photograph (CUCAP: BGL, 40) in the adjacent townland of Carn Beg. The cropmark is of a large enclosure (diam. c. 110m) defined by the negative mark of what is probably a wide earthen bank and traces of a fosse feature. In the interior are the negative cropmarks of two concentric gapped features (ext. diam. c. 50m int. diam. c. 30m), undoubtedly the stone circles which are S of the centre of the embanked enclosure. Archaeological testing (96E0321) immediately outside the embanked enclosure to the S failed to produce any related material (Murphy 1996).
Compiled by: Michael Moore
Date of upload: 18 December 2017
References:
1. Buckley, V.M. 1988 ‘Ireland’s Stonehenge’ – a lost antiquarian monument rediscovered. Archaeology Ireland 2 (2), 53-4.
2. CUCAP – Cambridge University Collection of Aerial Photographs. Unit for Landscape Modelling, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge.
3. Morris, H. 1905-07 Louthiana: ancient and modern. Mount Bagenal in Cooley. County Louth Archaeological and Historical Society Journal, vol. 1, 2, 17-22; 3, 38-45; 4, 57-61.
4. Murphy, D. 1997 Carnbeg, Dundalk: Enclosure and possible henge. In I. Bennett (ed.) Excavations 1996; summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland. 79, No. 281. Bray, Wordwell
5. Wright, T. 1758 Louthiana: or an introduction to the antiquities of Ireland. London. Thomas Payne.
What once was.
Image credit: Wright, T. 1758 Louthiana: or an introduction to the antiquities of Ireland. London. Thomas Payne.
Pottery vessel from a burial up the road, 3,600 – 3,500 BC, now in the National Museum of Ireland on Kildare Street in Dublin.
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Scientists find 257 prints that were preserved in wind-driven sand 80,000 years ago
Scientists have found hundreds of perfectly preserved footprints, providing evidence that Neanderthals walked the Normandy coast in France.
The prints suggest a group of 10-13 individuals, mostly children and adolescents, were on the shoreline 80,000 years ago.
Neanderthals, the closest evolutionary cousins to present-day humans and primates, have long been thought to have lived in social groups, but details have been hard to establish.
Jambstones and sillstone split the western gallery into two chambers. Cremated bones were found in both of these chambers, and in one of the chambers in the eastern gallery.
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The tallest stone at in Aghanaglack on the south side of the eastern court, 1.85 metres tall.
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Western gallery with dividing stone/backstone in the foreground.
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Stone balls from various tombs at Loughcrew, mainly from Carnbance West I think, now in the National Museum of Ireland on Kildare Street in Dublin.
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Stone Vessel from Knowth, presumably hollowed out from a boulder, now in the National Museum of Ireland on Kildare Street, Dublin
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A polished stone axe and a stone adzehead, both of porphyritic andesite, from the Lambay Island axe factory, circa 3,600–2,500 BC, now in the National Museum of Ireland on Kildare Street, Dublin.
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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.]
Eastern half of the ring, with the entrance feature to the right.
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Southern arc of the ring-cairn. The bank is about 10 metres thick in this section.
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Distorted pano looking south-east over this fairly magical ring-cairn. Access up here was a killer, but this was worth it.
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Pano taken looking north-west over this most impressive ring cairn. The slab to the right marks a possible entrance to what was surely a ceremonial enclosure, probably dating from the bronze age, and less than 150 metres from the Eagle’s Knoll passage grave.
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Beads from the Moylehid passage tomb, unearthed by Plunkett during his excavation over four days in 1894, now in the National Museum of Ireland in Kildare Street, Dublin.
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The slab on the left is a passage roofstone, now displaced. The passage itself is not visible.
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All three chambers are visible in this shot, eastern nearest.
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Pano taken from the south. The prominence that the Eagle’s Knoll passage tomb is on falls sharply to the east (right). You need to be sure-footed on the cairn in that vicinity.
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Small, back chamber at the south of the tomb. I initially thought this was the passage. The eastern chamber is top right.
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The surrounding frame wasn’t here the last time 13 years ago. It was used as a flower bed from 2010 and is already rotting. The stone is a survivor.
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