cairn ireland

Sited typically near a stream, the outstanding feature of this megalith is the dolmen of three uprights supporting a capstone (re-erected after an excavation in 1965) and closed by the (also reinstated) portal closing stone. The dolmen stands at the southern end of a 90ft long rectangular cairn of stones, at the other end of which was an apparently contemporary burial cist (no longer visible). No trace of burials was found, but Neolithic pottery was recovered in some quantity....

Tow cairns, 50 yards apart. One is egg-shaped, with three legs of a roofless portal dolmen in the east end, which contained four cremated bodies and some Late Stone Age/ Early Bronze Age pottery and a glass bead. The west end contained Early Bronze Age burials (c. 1500 B.C), and many centuries later a furnace was placed beside the north end of the cairn. The other cairn was round in shape and had four box-like graves in the eastern part of the cairn containing Stone Age pottery, and one later...

A large stone cairn about 150 feet in diameter, which probably covers a Passage-tomb. It stands near one side of an earthwork which may have been erected much later than the cairn....

A large stone cairn about 100 feet in diameter and about 25 feet high which probably covers a Passage-tomb. In a field on the opposite side of the road is an overgrown fort called Cathair Phaeter ('The pewter Fort') which consists of a collapsed stone wall with a bank outside it. There is a souterrain in the interior of the fort....

A fine burial mound about 20 feet high, consisting almost entirely of stones piled on top of one another. many of the large stones surrounding the base of the mound can still be seen. The mound presumably harbours a Passage-tomb underneath it which has never been opened....

This is a collapsed dolmen of large stones placed within an almost circular cairn about 4ft high. An excavation in 1934 was unrewarding because of earlier disturbance....

A stay in Cootehill would not be complete without a visit to Cohaw Court Cairn.
A fine example of a double court-tomb, looking as if two single court-tombs were placed back to back. There is a semicircular forecourt at each end, with five burial chambers between them.

The tomb, which was excavated in 1949, stands in a rectangular stone mound delineated by kerb-stones. A stone Age pottery vessel was found during the excavations.

For more information on Cohaw C...

On the south summit is a cairn containing what is claimed to be the highest passage-tomb in Britain or Ireland. A 25-ft long lintelled passage, originally even longer, leads to an octagonal chamber constructed of upright stones which bore a now vanished corbelled roof. Excavations in 1961 showed cremation to have been the dominant burial rite practised in the tomb. Furthermore north, and at a level around 140 ft lower, is the north cairn, which contained two cists for the burial of cremated r...

An ambiguous group of Bronze Age ritual and funerary monuments, overlying traces of Neolithic occupation in an area of cutaway bog to the south of the Sperrin Mountains. Uncovered in stages since 1945, the structures comprise stone circles, tangential alignments and cairns, remarkable for their complexity and extent. It may safely be assumed that others await discovery beneath the all-pervading peat. As is usual in the Ulster Circles, the stones here are mostly of no great height, with the exc...