ryaner

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.

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.