tombs ireland

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...

This well-preserved megalithic tomb lies in the saddle of two hilltops. The long passage of the tomb extends to a chamber that expands inwards. The way that the roof stones rise to the top of this chamber like stairs is similar to those built in Brittany. It is believed that a large mound of earth originally covered these graves....

A large tomb of the enclosed, full-court type, with parallel twin galleries placed at the western end of the court, each divided into two chambers. One of the galleries is roofed with a heavy capstone. Two small unsegmented chambers at the eastern end of the court have entrance stones decorated with curvilinear motifs recalling the megalithic art of the passage-tombs, but prolonged weathering has almost obliterated the designs. The court is oval in plan and measures about 45 feet in lengt...

One of the most spectacular megalithic tombs of the distinctive south Leinster group, a stately Neolithic mausoleum, 'remarkable', to quote Borlase, 'for its solidity, and the perfect carrying out of a unity of design'. As a scheduled National Monument it is entitled to better care than it currently receives. 'It stands neglected in a corner of the disused burial ground of Kilburrin, 4 miles south-south-west of Waterford city, its great lichen encrusted stones emerging from a tangle of overgrow...

Improbable though it may seem, this interesting megalithic tomb was lived in by a family in the nineteenth century, a purpose to which its large interior was suited and possibly to some extent modified. Gaps between the side-stones were windproofed with turf and mud, and no doubt the resulting 'house' was as snug as some of the tiny cabins occupied around the time of the Great Famine. The presence of a horse in the photograph is a reminder too that these ancient structures not infrequently serv...

One of the great wonders of the ancient world, Newgrange is older than Stonehenge, Mycenae or even the pyramids in Egypt. Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre is the starting point for a tour of Newgrange....

Follow the signs for Carrowkeel, west of the village is Castlebaldwin, as the tar road gives way to a grassy track the stark, jutting cliff faces before you have a cathedral majesty which must have held a magic for the great Stone Age architects of these remarkable tombs. You leave the car at the apex of this track and climb by foot the short distance to the top of Bricklieve Mountain. All but one of the cairns you see scattered over the hillside are passage graves; the other covers a court to...

A wedge-tomb with a long rectangular chamber still consisting of ten upright stones covered by three capstones. Portions of the original kerb-stones surrounding the mound of covering stones still survive, though nothing remains of the mound itself....

Annaghmare is one of the best built of all the court-tombs in Ulster. High quality masonry can be seen in the horizontal drystone walling between the uprights of the more than semicircular forecourt, which leads into a long triple-chambered burial gallery. The stone mound surrounding this gallery was later extended to enclose two further burial chambers entered from the side of the cairn.

Careful excavations in 1963-64 produced the inhumed remains of two individuals and the cremated bo...

A Neolithic court-tomb of c.3000 B.C. with a forecourt of low stones facing south-eastwards and giving access to a two-chambered gallery placed in an ill-defined oval mound. Local tradition explains it as the grave of Finn MacCumhaill's poet-warrior son Ossian (Oisin). His faked 'songs' as 'translated' by James MacPherson in 1762-3 led to the start of the romantic movement in literature when published in Scotland, which can suitably be seen in the distance from this evocative site in the Glens...