tombs down

One of the most aesthetically satisfying megalithic structures of the Irish countryside, a 4,000 year-old Neolithic tomb that might equally be a work of modern sculpture. If proof were needed that Stone Age man built his monuments to impress as well as to last, then here it is. Its rugged geometry has long been admired, and illustrations of it have appeared in innumerable publications as well as in television commercials promoting tourism and butter. It was Fergusson who coined the term 'tripo...

What may at first seem like a low dolmen on a hillock overlooking Loughin island lake at a cross-roads on the Seaforde-Crossgar road is, in fact, a large, low capstone resting on a number of smaller stones. These may once have been part of a passage-tomb, as an account of 1802 talks of it being beneath a cairn 60ft in diameter and having a lintelled passage approaching it....

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...

Clontygora court-tomb has a deep, almost V-shaped and originally paved forecourt, delimited by sometimes massive stones. One of these reaches a height of about 9ft, and stands near the entrance to a triple-chambered burial gallery with some capstones still in place. It is enclosed by a cairn so much disturbed that its original outline is difficult to assess. Excavations in 1937 produced the cremated remains of at least one individual, a quantity of Neolithic pottery sherds, some flint and a s...