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county list
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| Court-tombs = Portal-tombs = Wedge-tombs = Passage-tombs = Stone Circles | France | |
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GAZETTEER of
SELECTED MONUMENTS IN
Place-names in italics refer to listed entries.
Aghanlish: Wedge-tomb and Standing-stones
This area of County Leitrim and adjacent parts of Sligo have many tombs that I have not visited. on this entry would be welcome. The pair of standing-stones to the NE of the wedge-tomb may be 'male and female'. ~ 2.6 kms SW in Shesknan are a court-tomb (G 7841 5094) and a wedge-tomb (G 7843 5090). ~ 1.8 kms SE in Largydonnell (G 819 510) is an unclassified megalithic tomb.
Corracloona: Single-court tomb
About 30 metres W of the road from Glenfarne to Kiltyclogher, this unusual tomb has a large door-slab in which is a "kennel-hole" entrance, reminiscent of some in prehistoric tombs in southern France. The hole does not seem to be artificial, but that does not mean that it was not a perhaps-serendipitous choice. The door-stone is very much like the septal slab of wedge-tombs, and the gallery has just one chamber (like a southern French 'dolmen'), which makes the monument either hybrid or experimental in an area of much megalithic activity.
Dartry: Wedge-tomb
Situated on the gradual W slope of Truskmore Mountain, this is one of several megalithic tombs to be discovered recently. It is an almost-intact wedge-tomb with all the classic characteristics of kerb, double-walling and portico/antechamber, though the entrance is still hidden in peat.
~ Just over 11 kms NE is the well-preserved court-tomb at Shasgar .
Fenagh Beg: Portal-tomb and Passage-tomb
800 metres N of the fine mediæval church in Fenagh, and 300 metres W of a by-road, across a marshy hollow, is a large, conspicuous but damaged portal-tomb, whose grass-covered capstone is 3.7 metres long, and supported on one portal-stone over 2 metres high. The other portal-stone has broken, and a large fragment of the roofstone - over 2 metres long - lies at the SE corner of the chamber. About 100 metres N of the portal-tomb is a round cairn about 10 metres in diameter, in which there is the small, roofless,polygonal chamber of a passage-tomb. About 100 metres S of the portal-tomb is another small passage-tomb in a rectangular grassy cairn from which some stones protrude.
Shasgar: Court-tomb
Best approached by the mountain road that overlooks Lough Melvin, then along a track up the hill and a walk of 800 metres over heather and ling to the third rise, this well-preserved (if untidy) tomb commands a fine view over Lough Melvin. Its gallery seems to be unsegmented, with good enty-jambs and excellent corbelling of large and small slabs in several tiers on both sides. The cairn is partly peat-covered and survives to the height of the (missing) gallery roof. The S side of the very deep (possibly Full-) court is fairly well-preserved.
~ 1.2. kms WSW in Mautiagh (G 884 501) at the end of a long track are the remains of another court-tomb. ~ 12 kms SW is the wedge-tomb at Dartry .
Tullyskeherny: Court-tombs
Almost 13 kms due S of Shasgar, 2.5 km SE of Manorhamilton on "O'Donnell's Rock Walk", situated in wild landscape beside a remarkable limestone outcrop resembling the Burren of county Clare, and containing boulders and formations of bizarre shapes, many of them perforated, is a pair of court-tombs built of the same limestone crag and in places indistinguishable from it. The graves are on the same axis, and set back to back only 5 metres apart. The more northerly consists of a long cairn with remains of a long narrow forecourt leading into an antechamber and two main chambers. Beside this gallery are no fewer than 6 subsidiary chambers opening on to the long sides of the cairn, some asymmetrically arranged and on different axes to that of the cairn, which seems to have been built directly onto bedrock. Some cairn material has been used in making the nearby track. The southerly tomb consists of a 2-chambered gallery set in a large oval cairn 24 metres long and approached through the remains of a forecourt. As with the other tomb, both forecourt and gallery are deeply embedded in the cairn, and the gallery is almost completely filled with rubble. The site commands splendid views. ~ There are other unclassified megalithic tombs nearby in Larkfield , 1.7 kms due W (G 882 370), and in Tawnymanus , 700 metres NW (G 893 373). |
