What is recorded here

Cairn is a low granite tomb in County Dublin where a teenager was cremated on boards stretched across a pit, their bones scattered beside arrowheads and a stone axe. The road builders found concentric rings of stone and scorched fragments, suggesting a young life ended suddenly and honoured with fire.

Test excavation carried out in advance of road-building for the Southern Cross Motorway revealed a low cairn formed of granite stones (L 25m, Wth 12m, H 0.30m). A number of possible concentric arrangements of cairn stones were recorded. Two leaf-shaped arrowheads, a stone axe, a plano-convex knife and hollow-scrapers were found within the cairn material along with fragments of burnt bone and a number of Cordoned urn fragments. Under the cairn a partially slab-lined pit contained a cremated individual of mid-teens in age. There was another sub-rectangular pit in the centre of the cairn. This contained a number of scorched granite stones with fragments of burnt bone and was thought to have been the funeral pyre where boards were placed over the top of the pit and set alight (Seaver & Keeley 2003, 130, 37F). Compiled by: Geraldine Stout and Padraig Clancy. Revised upload on: 22 April 2018.

A Neolithic cairn; its low profile and concentric stone arrangements suggest a funerary or ritual function. The find is significant as a rare surviving prehistoric monument in an area undergoing urban development.

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.