What is recorded here

Cairn stands on a narrow plateau beside the Goulaun River and Letterkeen Hill, where bronze-age hands mixed stone and soil to mark the dead. Ó 'Ríordáin and Mac Dermott opened that mound in 1950, finding small stone chambers and pit graves beneath a later rath. The place still feels layered: first burial, then reuse, then memory, all pressed into boggy highland earth.

Located on a rise in the middle of a plateau bounded by the Goulaun River on one side and by the steep slope of Letterkeen Hill on the other, in an area of mountainous and boggy terrain. This burial cairn was excavated (E000015) in 1950 by Ó 'Ríordáin and Mac Dermott (1950-51). The excavators interpreted a stony rise or mound, which appeared to be partly natural and partly artificial, as a possible Bronze Age burial mound or cairn (ibid, 91). Three cists (MA046-004002-; MA046-004003-; MA046-004004-) and two pit burial (MA046-004005-; MA046-004006-) were found, and the stony material of the possible cairn directly overlay one (MA046-004003-) of them. At a later period, a rath (MA046-004007-) was built on this location. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 9 April 2019

A Neolithic burial cairn; its location suggests it was part of a broader ritual landscape associated with early farming communities in the region.

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