What is recorded here

Twenty upright stones once marked the heads and feet of the dead at Reighlig na lughduigh, but greed or necessity stripped them to build a cabin wall. The eastern mound still bruises the grass at Coolraheen South, preserving a shape that resistance cannot erase. Whatever battle or tragedy filled that ground, the stones are gone and the memory has become a hole in the landscape.

On a gently sloping upland moor with a small river valley to the E and slightly higher hills to the W, in rolling grassland. According to Tighe (1802, 633), 'In the parish of Macullee south east of Purcell's-hill, is a place called Reighlig na lughduigh or the burying place of the black lough; here there were about twenty small upright stones, placed like grave stones, at the head and feet of bodies; by digging between them Mr. Ellis found some decayed bones, near the surface; there is a faint tradition in this country that a battle was fought here....On the summit of a hill called Knock-major from a modern proprietor Major Purcell, and above the place of burial, is a small circular enclosure [KK011-022----]; most of the monumental stones [of the Reighlig] have lately been taken away, to build the walls of a cabin'. An oval mound (KK011-017001-) is depicted on the 1st (1839) ed. OS 6-inch map, straddling a townland boundary. On the 1899 revision only the eastern portion, within the townland of Coolraheen South, is depicted, suggesting that the western portion had been levelled. This E portion survives as a roughly oval flat-topped mound (max. dims. 35m E-W; 18m N-S; H 4m; diam. of top c. 15m E-S; c. 8m N-S), partly quarried into at the NE. There is no evidence of any grave-markers. This mound may be the burial ground mentioned by Tighe. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 31 January 2019

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