tombs ireland

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 magnificent, well presented full-court tomb, restored after excavation in 1935 and protected by a modern wall. One of the more accessible monuments of its type, it is situated at the rear of a cottage on the east side of the Bundoran-Sligo road, near the hamlet of Creevykeel. The long cairn is wedge-shaped and tapers sharply towards the west. The court, 50 feet in length, has straight sides and shallow curved ends. It is entered by an orthostat-lined passageway on the east. At the wes...

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...

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...

Dating to the 3rd millennium B.C., the site is known in Irish as Sliabh na Caillighe - 'the Hill of the Witch', legend declaring that the mounds and cairns were created by an over-flying witch dropping pebbles on the landscape. The view from atop the hills is one of subtle and varied contrasts, the rolling fertile lands of Meath stretching to the south and east, the lakelands and expansive flat plains of Cavan and the Midlands seemingly limitless as they spread towards the Shannon....

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...

In the parish of Abbeylara there are two well preserved remains of stone circles. There are also in this area surviving traces of what appear to be megalithic burials. There is no doubt of the antiquity of these stone circles and of their importance as archaelogical remains of the Bronze Age period of our history. They stand as memorials to those who recognised the sun as the centre of the universe, the source of all life....

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...