tombs ireland

Carrowkeel, in the Bricklieve hills, is an ancient cemetery of circular mounds dating from the late Stone Age (2500-200BC).

There are some splendid views from the exposed hilltop site....

There may have been an early Christian monastery in the valley where, according to tradition, St. Colmcille banished demons who enveloped the valley in a fog. The most conspicuous remains are the pillars decorated with cross-motifs and geometric designs which are now the  'stations of the cross' of the pilgrimage which takes place on the Saint's feastday on June 9th. The pillars are spread over an area in the valley 3.5 miles long and the pilgrimage takes as many hours to complete.
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Occupying a commanding hill-top overlooking islanded Lough Gill to the south and pretty Colgagh Lake to the west, this large and imposing monument is perhaps the best example of a centre court-tomb in the country. Its traditional name, by which it is still known hereabouts, is Leacht Con Mhic Ruis. The oval court, 50 feet in length with an entrance on the south side, has two segmented galleries at its east end and one at the west. In the last century all three galleries had large lintel stones...

Together with Knowth and Newgrange, this mound forms part of the great Passage-tomb cemetery beside the lower stretches of the Boyne. The mound has a diameter of 280 feet and is 50 feet high. A number of the stones surrounding the bottom of the mound can still be seen, some of them bearing ornamentation. There are two prehistoric tombs in the western part of the mound, dating from about 3000 B.C. One of these is reached by climbing down a ladder in an iron cage; it has a long passage, with so...

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....

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....

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...

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...

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...

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....