tombs ireland

A wedge-tomb in a mound of stones which was 4 feet high and 42 feet long. The tomb itself consists of a short entrance chamber, and a longer burial chamber behind it. Around the tomb itself there is a setting of stones placed in the form of a U. A mould for a bronze spear-head was found in the tomb, suggesting a date of about 100 B.C., but it may be even earlier than that....

A Passage-tomb under a mound of stones. The chamber is approached with two stones bearing concentric diamond-like motifs resembling the human face. The burial chamber has two side-chambers on each side and one at the back. One roof stone of the chamber near the entrance bears a decoration consisting of five lines. The corbelled roof of the chamber is incomplete, and entrance is most commonly effected through a hole in the top of it. The grave has probably been open for a long time, as an Ear...

One of a small group of portal tombs which have two capstones 9others include Knockeen in Waterford, Kilmogue in Kilkenny and the Kempe Stones in Down). Like many 'dolmens' it stands in a hollow, so that the visitor's initial view of it is from above. The main capstone is 9 feet long and rests at the front on the single remaining portal stone, 6 feet high, on which a small Christian cross has been inscribed, apparently recently. The lower capstone is supported on the chamber uprights and, as i...

Situated 1/2 mile west of the crossroads hamlet of Harristown and better known in the locality as Leac an Scail, this is the tallest portal-tomb in Ireland. The monumental entrance to the chamber consists of two majestic orthostats each 12 feet high, with a massive door slab set squarely between them. The pitch of the capstone is unusually steep and its front edge soars out over the portals to a point nearly 15 feet above the ground. It rests at the back on a smaller, secondary capstone, laid...

This court-tomb is unusual in having a forecourt forming almost three-quarters of a circle, with the largest stones near the end of the 'horns'. The court gave access to a now roofless three-chambered burial gallery, of which that next the entrance was not used for burials. Excavations in 1962 showed the end-chamber to have been undisturbed and to contain cremated bone as well as a curious dark brown layer which has been encountered in other ulster court-tomb excavations. Unexpectedly, these c...

The extensive townland of Ballywholan (locally pronounced Ballyhullion), which stretches a few miles north of the Tyrone/Monaghan border, contains two chambered tombs of differing types, both close to side-roads leading westwards off the B 83 about 3 miles south-east of Clogher. Carnfadraig, just to the north of the more northerly of the two side-roads, is apparently a portal-tomb, with chambers built of large stones at each end of an 86 foot long cairn. 'Excavations' in 1897 uncovered some hum...

It has a more than semicircular stone-paved forecourt, in which stone axes were found. Portals lead into the roofless burial chamber, placed in a long stone-revetted mound. Excavations in 1935 and again in 1975 showed that behind the chambered burial gallery there was a passage, originally timber-roofed, containing pits but also much cremated bone, suggesting that - unusually - the passage may well have been the location of the crematorium itself. A number of Neolithic pottery sherds and flin...

Cregganconroe, reached by a long lane from the nearest by-road, is a well preserved example of those court-tombs erected by Stone Age farmers in many parts of the north of Ireland around and after 3500 B.C. as communal burial places. This one is located on a small hillock, and preserves the semicircular east-facing forecourt which leads into a two-chambered burial gallery, a large capstone of which has fallen in close to the entrance. The tomb stands in a roughly rectangular cairn, which has t...

Easily accessible along pathways, the latter stands at an altitude of 720 ft in the clearing of a forestry plantation which provides a splendid view across undisturbed countryside towards a great table mountain to the south-west. The tomb consists of a burial gallery subdivided into four chambers flanked at each end by a roughly semicircular forecourt. Excavations in 1938 produced a combination of Stone and Bronze Age finds including pottery and flint, while the only bones which could be ident...

The monument's true nature as a court-tomb of c.3500 B.C. was only revealed during excavations in 1979-82, which removed the peat that had helped to preserve what turned out to be one of the most complete examples of its kind, and ensured its survival. The trapezoidal stone cairn over 50 feet long has a semicircular forecourt at its eastern end, at the centre of which a portal covered by a mighty capstone gave access to a triple-chambered burial gallery which had originally been roofed with cor...