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Cairn

Cairn, burial cairn

What is recorded here

Cairn is a burial place on a rocky Clarence ridge, its two joined stone heaps still holding the shape of the dead who first climbed there. The northern heap rises higher because the ground falls away beneath it, while the southern heap hides a narrow stone chamber aligned like a finger pointing north. A later rectangular pillar stands on the summit, perhaps marking the site long after the original buried persons were forgotten. The valley beside it has watched herds, fields and memory shift for centuries.
On a slight N-facing rise in rocky pasture, close to the edge of a limestone shelf to the N, overlooking Glensleade valley to the E, and within an extensive multiperiod field system (CL009-225----). Listed as ‘cemetery cairn’ in the RMP (1996). Two conjoined grass-covered cairns of stone forming a single oval cairn (10.7m N-S). The N cairn (6-7m E-W; H 0.7-8m) has no visible features apart from a post-medieval D-shaped drystone pillar on its summit (L 1.2m; Wth 0.8m; H 1.7m). The S cairn (4m E-W; H 0.4m) has a cist (CL005-191002-) aligned N-S and defined by protruding side stones. The ground falls away to the N in part accounting for the greater height of the N cairn. Another cairn (CL005-192----) is located c. 90m to the S.    Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Eve Campbell   Date of upload: 14 October 2025
Passage tomb, dating to the Neolithic period (c. 3500–2500 BCE). It is one of the most significant megalithic tombs in Ireland, associated with early farming communities and long-distance cultural connections across Atlantic Europe.

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What survives
Recorded monument

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