tombs ireland

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...

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...

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...

This 'classic' example of a dual court-tomb overlooks Strangford Lough almost 6 miles north-east of Downpatrick. The basic unit of a forecourt giving access to a gallery divided into four burial chambers is repeated at each end of a long, wedge-shaped mound, so that the two individual units almost but do not quite meet back to back near the centre of the mound. A minimum of 17 individuals were found buried in each gallery, but all were disarticulated in such a way as to suggest that they must...

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....

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...

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....

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...