tombs ireland

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....

A megalithic tomb consisting of a rectangular chamber and what seems like a forecourt. The forecourt wall is made of drystone walling. The unusual feature of this tomb is the stone blocking the entrance to the tomb, at the bottom of which is a 'port hole' - presumably to allow subsequent burials to take place. The whole is surrounded by the remains of a cairn 60 feet long, The tomb was excavated, but the results were never published....

This picturesquely situated wedge-tomb preserves many of the classic features of the type. The tapered form is well defined, as is the double walling of the segmented gallery, partially covered by a large flat roof-slab. A door-stone closes the tomb entrance, which faces west. There is some indication of the existence of a cairn. The monument stands by the roadside at the north-east corner of Lough Nahaltora and was in the past resorted to as a holy well by local people.
Wedge-tombs were...

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...

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...

Augustinian priory with 15th-century tomb. Always accessible....

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...

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 capstone supported by three of the six upright stones, two of which form the portal. Outside one side of the portal there is a separate stone which may have formed part of a forecourt....

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...