legananny

One of the most aesthetically satisfying megalithic structures of the Irish countryside, a 4,000 year-old Neolithic tomb that might equally be a work of modern sculpture. If proof were needed that Stone Age man built his monuments to impress as well as to last, then here it is. Its rugged geometry has long been admired, and illustrations of it have appeared in innumerable publications as well as in television commercials promoting tourism and butter. It was Fergusson who coined the term 'tripod-dolmen' to describe this and similar portal tombs, believing that it never had a covering cairn but was always intended to be seen as it stands now, 'a studied exhibition of a tour de force'. This is an opinion shared by some archaelogists today. As with all tripod-dolmens, Legananny consists of just three uprights and a capstone. The dominant portal stones are some 6 feet high and the tapered back-stone 41/2 feet. The smooth-topped granite capstone is 101/2 feet long and characteristically uptilted at the front, decreasing in width towards the back of the tomb.