ryaner

Another possible passage grave, and so close to home too. Goldenhill is a funny little hill, to the left just off the N81 as you head for Blessington. 274 metres high, but rising slowly and gently from the aforesaid road at about 200 metres. East of the hill is Kilbride, Cill Bhríde (good old Brigid) down in the Brittas river valley, just north of where it joins the Liffey.

I’d never heard of it until I was browsing Herity’s book and surfing the NMR map browser. And there it was in Price too. Three mounds/cairns/raths/possible passage graves. So off we set, 10 minutes up through Ballinascorney, down into Brittas, left at The Lamb just inside Wicklow and first turn right up the incline to the ridge/hill.

You can see the main monument here from the road. Looking west, the fosse/ditch on the east side is visible. There were a bunch of people, the landowner and his relatives, in the field messing about on a quad-bike. We sauntered over to them and asked permission to have a look. He said no problem. I asked if he knew much about the monuments. He said that the main one, the rath, was a fairy fort, and that the second one, the mound to its south, had original stones and field clearance mixed in. He also mentioned that the “heritage people” had told him to “leave them alone”. I remarked that I was sure he would have complied with that without the instruction, bad luck and all that. He agreed.

So the minor one first: Pretty much a denuded cairn, some original kerbstones remain, mainly in the south-west quadrant. It’s about 20 metres in diameter and under a metre high, really just a raised platform. You’d be forgiven for wondering why it was robbed of its stone only to have field clearance heaped on it later. Pretty unremarkable stuff anyway, except that it has such a prestigious neighbour, leaving one to wonder which came first.

Over to the rath/possible passage grave. It’s very impressive, whatever its provenance. The view across to the passage grave cemetery at Seefin/Seefingan/Seahan is great, slightly spoiled by the telegraph line and poles. It really feels that the inhabitants here wanted to be looked over by the ancestors. The mound is about three and a half metres high, the ditch/fosse mainly in evidence on the south-eastern arc. North of east is the supposed entrance with the large stones that, along with the structural stones in the interior, made some think passage grave. These are a bit jumbled but seem to mark out the entrance to the rath/mound.

Six stones of varying size and some smaller ones make a rectangular, almost box-like structure just outside the rath entrance. I’ve seen a similar construction at Knockscur themodernantiquarian.com/site/10620#post-63878 I imagine that this may have been some sort of “contamination/quarantine zone” before you were allowed to enter the rath, sort of like a mini-court. One of these large stones has a gorgeous quartz vein running through it. Another seems to have been split. There is always the chance that these were very late additions – only excavation will tell. There are other large kerb-like stones around the circumference of the mound, in particular at the south quadrant.

The interior is a mess, with 6 to 8 pits dug into the raised floor. These are a distraction to interpretation – it has been said that they might be evidence of huts inside the rath, but I can’t agree, the rath being large but not large enough to contain that many separate dwellings/buildings. There is one very cist-like structure in one of these pits – Price changed his mind about this and said possibly “a ruined hut (door?)” but again I can’t agree. The covering stone here is very much like a capstone and from what I could see, it seems to cover a rectangular stone box.

So what is it? I reckon that this is an old cairn that was re-used as a rath, a ‘fairy-fort’ in common parlance. It may well have been a passage grave, situated as it is almost on the top of the hill, and in the shadow of Seefin and Seefingan. The hill is elongated north to south, and as the rath is situated west of the the summit, the most expansive views are in that direction, over the N81 towards the ridge of hills that begin at Saggart Hill and terminate just west of Blessington. A not very well-known and mysterious place, fascinating all the more for that reason.

Tornant Upper and Tornant Lower is a strange and frustrating place. Both times I’ve been there I’ve left with more questions than answers, confounded by what’s here, what’s said to be here, what may have been here once, and by my own limited ability to interpret all this (dis)information.

When you arrive at the farm gate that has the supposed tomb that’s marked on the OS map, you’re confronted by a small, ridged hillock that rises to about 20 metres from the road. It’s been well interfered with down through the ages and has that digged out, messed up feel to it. Not nice but not intimidating enough to be off-putting.

Burl has a stone circle here somewhere; so has Price. There’s a carved stone with passage tomb art in the National Museum that’s alleged to come from here, ‘reputed’ as the Inventory puts it. Price, on 12 September, 1928, saw a stone here “…with what appear to be incised markings, not spirals, but more like a labyrinth.” He says that it was on a ‘rath’, “…high up on top of the hill – which looks like it has been cut away for gravel.” He then goes on to describe the mound being surrounded by stones and says that they were dynamited. He returned there in 1949 – “Since I visited it in September 1928 … the stone with the concentric markings has been moved to the museum.” I’ve seen this stone in the museum. There’s a shot of it here. I’m not arguing that it doesn’t come from this area, but I am saying that where it’s reputed to come from, “high up on top of the hill”, does not appear to me to be a passage grave. That’s the one down lower, east of the ridge and the one that’s marked stone circle on Price’s map.

The mound on top of the hill, the normal domain of passage graves, looks just like that, a mound. It’s beautifully situated, with a strange gully to its east and not much else of distinction, save its position. There are extensive views to the east into the west Wicklow mountains – Lobawn and Suganloaf, and down the Glen of Imaal towards Lugnaquilla and further south-east to Keadeen. The mound rises to about a metre and a half above the ridge and has an almost flat top, with a diameter of about 5 metres. Pretty nondescript.

Down from this small ridge, directly to the east, is an overgrown mound. Now this looks more like it to me – there are some large boulders in situ that could be kerbstones. North-east of this flattened mound are, I think, the dynamited stones that Price mentions (dynamiting stones from prehistoric monuments? Who’d have believed it?) This circular structure is larger and may have contained a passage and chamber once (there could still be remnants but the whole thing is overgrown). It’s about 20 to 25 metres in diameter and has a field boundary cut into its eastern arc.

Over this boundary is another mound, almost like a satellite tomb as at Knowth. There is said to be a standing stone hereabouts but there was too much livestock around to go hunting. The real gem hereabouts, imho, is the rath about 400 metres away just slightly north of west. I’ve been here twice and have viewed it from the ridge and the road but have never braved the sheep-filled fields between me and it. It’s said to be an altered natural hillock, and from the distance is very impressive. Maybe the next time, if that ever happens.

I’ve tried to get to this tomb on two previous occasions, defeated both times by the forestry, the lack of detail on the map and the many gated bungaloids. Not today however, the archaeology.ie screenshot landing me right on top of it.

There is a field that comes all the way down from the cairn on top of Lugnagun into the townland of Blackrock. Up through this for about 300 metres, along the old path way and over to the north-east for another 300 metres and there she sits in the corner of the adjacent field.

When Ó Nualláin visited the site in 1989 or 1993, he saw much more of the structure than I could see today. The roofless gallery sits in much of its cairn, but any facade or larger stones are now covered by vegetation and soil, even at this early time of the year. There is evidence of the classic wedge tomb double-walling on the south side of the tomb. The gallery faces just south of west. The cairn is almost a metre and a half high.

From the back of the tomb, the view is dominated by the ridge of Kippure, Seefingan, Corrig and Seahan. Views to the west are of Blessington reservoir.

A kind of a disappointment as I was expecting to see a lot more of the structure, but a good thing that so much more than the usual skeleton remains.

Oldcourt ring cairn, robbed out cairn or barrow is relatively easy to get to. It’s in an area that has much of interest, south-west of a large habitation site at the top of Woodend Hill. There are great views to the south and the tree-line that contains Lugnagun passage grave is visible, though a daunting prospect across the valley and up a steep incline.

The cairn/barrow is about 15 metres across and the stony bank is visible at a height of .3 of a metre, though very hard to get a good shot of with all the rushes and stuff. I had her nibs in tow and even though I wanted to, I didn’t fancy the climb to the top of Woodend Hill with her on my shoulders.

OK. So when is a stone circle just a circle of stones? And when is a circle of stones a stone circle? Plezica throws up both questions. And not bad questions they are, as we’re in west Wicklow, territory of the embanked stone circles of Boleycarrigeen and Castleruddery, and of the boulder circles at Athgreany and Broadleas (actually Kildare, but for geographic and situational purposes, lumped in here, along with Brewel Hill and Whiteleas circles too).

Plezica (pronounced Plessica according to Liam Price, of whom more anon) stone circle, for that is what it’s called on the National Monuments Records database, is not that well known. I found it on the NMR a couple of months back and have had an itch ever since. I’ve searched t’internet (not very thoroughly) and have found no mention of it anywhere. There is a Plezica House and a Plezica stoneworks and a few mentions of Plezica on some property websites, but no mention of a prehistoric stone circle, nor any other prehistoric monument of any kind. So Plezica has played on my mind and finally, on Good Friday last, I scratched.

I’m not a great gardener but had spent a surprisingly enjoyable few hours in the afternoon having a go at the back garden before things got totally out of hand in the summer. Six o’clock in the evening is not the best time to head out into unknown territory, but the N81 corridor could have me down there in 20 minutes and the pull was just too much to resist.

There’s a chicane-like kink in the road at Crehelp, below Church mountain, about a mile south of Athgreany stone circle. Take the right turn here and travel for about another mile through the pleasant pastureland in the direction of Dunlavin. This minor road kinks in turn as it drops into a small valley – this is Plezica. There’s a footpath marked on the OS map (sheet 55) and it’s this path that I took (I had a much more detailed screenshot from archaeology.ie).

So once more over a field gate into the unknown. Down the track/path, the site is at first hidden behind the crest of a hill to your right, then comes into view after about a minute. The field is a large one of open pasture and today the cattle are behind an electric fence to the west. The circle is overgrown and pretty nondescript at first glance. Curiously, it’s fenced in with barbed wire and has its own farm gate. The fencing is right up on the raised platform that holds the circle, seeming to have been constructed to contain the stones inside it more than to keep anybody/thing out.

Two trees have fallen within the enclosure and cover the stones in the east and north-east quadrant. None of the stones save the centre stone is taller than a metre. I counted, like Kelleher below, 18 in all, but not as evenly spaced as he describes. Two are of quartz, though one of these is quite small and lies flat and loose on the ground. The granite stones remind me of the boulders of Broadleas, or some of the stones outside the ring at Castleruddery. None of them appear to be embedded in the turf and there’s little evidence of packing, again a reminder of Broadleas.

The circle is most definitely on a raised and level platform, though substantial ploughing of the surrounds may make this seem more pronounced. The centre stone is curious; not on its own there – I saw a slab of slate-like stone beside it that is lying almost flat and is embedded into the turf. New growth and little time hindered any further exploration.

The site is beautifully placed, almost at the head of a valley that slopes south towards Keadeen and Brusselstown. Indeed, from above to the north, there are no other features of substance, though east is the ridgeback of Church mountain, less impressive here than at Whiteleas.

So what is it? A circle of stones yes; but a stone circle? Maybe. Price, who travelled widely in the county, doesn’t mention it. Neither does Burl. Much of Price’s work guided the later mapping and inventorying of the area, and yet nothing. There was much cairn-like material scattered throughout the floor inside the circle. That, and its small size and the fact that none of the stones seem embedded, could lead one to think ‘denuded tumulus of some sort’, the centre stones part of some chamber or cist, the circle itself kerbing. And yet, much of it reminds one of its neighbours, maybe a small derivative of these grander rings.

Plezica may not be all that it promised to be, but it’s still got enough to keep this megalithic adventurer/explorer happy, further deepening the mystery of the sites along the N81 corridor between Blessington and Baltinglass. There’s much more to see out there!

And so to Whiteleas. Sometimes I wonder why we do this: what is it that pulls us through muddy fields, over barbed wire fences, calls us to tread and traipse across land that’s unwelcoming, ungracious, bitter. East of here are the Wicklow hills, free and unfettered, peat-covered, wild and uneasy. But down here is order; straight lines and permissions. Well excuse me to all that. There was a stone circle here once and I’m going to find out what, if anything, remains. Lorg na gcloch indeed.

I parked at Ballysize, Bealach Saghas, the road to god knows where. About face and back across the N81, up the road towards Broadleas and Ballymore Eustace, over the first field gate on the left and back into Kildare. The ground is marshy, reedy and there are two streams to ford.

This is a search for traces. The heroes of the various archaeological surveys have kept at it, pulling together a disparate range of sources, from folklore to old maps, aerial archives and fieldwork. 50 years of the Archaeological Survey of Ireland was recently celebrated with, amongst other things, a supplement in Archaeology Ireland magazine. It contains a short piece about he NMS public viewer, a highly addictive resource for the likes of us here, and I would never have been able to investigate this ruin without it.

Go to the red dot that marks the site and what does remain is a slightly raised platform and two pillar-like stones, one embedded flat into the turf, beside a gate in a large pasture field. It has probably been used as a tillage field in the past. Beyond the platform to the south-east the ground starts to slope quite rapidly down, ending in a boggy swamp over the field wall that is bordered by massive and, in their own way, ancient beech and birch trees.

Face south-east from the platform, for the views in any other direction are flat and obscure, and the eye is pulled towards the cleavage-like display of Sleivecorragh and Church Mountains. Slievecorragh is 418 metres high, Church Mountain is 544 metres high, but the illusion created from our viewing place shows them to be of equal height. Both have cairns. I’ve been to the top of Sleivecorragh and have seen that its cairn has been robbed out and mostly denuded, so its nipple is less prominent than its neighbour.

Broughills Hill, visible further east may well have been the mother’s head, placed as it is in the landscape, but I think we can leave that speculation aside and definitively say why the circle was built here.

When Walshe visited the site in 1931 it was already in ruins. Today it’s nothing but a memory, a trace, with 2 possible circle stones left (why?). What happened? I don’t really know, but sometime between 1931 and 1985 the circle was destroyed. That is the deliberately neutral view. The biased view is that some ignoramus of a landowner, either maliciously or thoughtlessly rode over this place of heritage, smashed all traces of the old (I hesitate to use the word) temple and nearly erased the memory of a people that worshipped the land, the very land from which he sought to wring a few more dollars or shekels or beads. But sure who am I to judge his actions? Isn’t there always hunger? But Slievecorragh remains, and so does Church Mountain, testament enough.

lorg
1.  hallmark(m1)
2.  imprint(n m1)(impression, mark)
3.  impression(m1)(of stamp, seal)
4.  print(n m1)(mark)
5.  seek(vt)
6.  scent(m1)(track)
7.  trace(n m1)
8.  trail(n m1)(tracks)
9.  track(m1)(mark, of suspect, animal)