What is recorded here

Cam Dalian stands on a Cavan ridge, its round cairn still touching the sky though field fences have torn through its stones. Richardson wrote that men opened a hidden chamber twenty-five years before his visit and pulled out urns, five large skulls and heaps of burnt bone. The dead may have chosen this summit because they could watch the living world turn beneath them, or perhaps they simply wanted their ashes scattered across every horizon at once.

Situated on the summit of a ridge and with commanding views in all directions. A large, round cairn, some 3m high, is much denuded and greatly disturbed by field fences. Richardson, writing c. 1739, (quoted by Paterson, Gaffikin and Davies 1938), recorded the name of the site as 'Cam Dalian' and claimed that a passage was discovered in the cairn 'about twenty-five years ago' and that 'severall urns, 5 large skulls and a great deal of burnt bones' were found in one of three 'apartments' there. This account would suggest that the cairn may have covered a passage tomb. Richardson also noted, just S of the cairn, a square enclosure about twenty yards across bounded by 'large stones set deep in the ground', and 'in the circuit of the hill . . . four small plots of ground of a circular figure inclosed with large stones, all of which are old burial places.' These have not been located. (Paterson, Gaffikin and Davies 1938, 143-5) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cavan' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1995). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 22 December 2008

A Neolithic passage tomb; likely dates to the Early to Middle Bronze Age. Its location on a prominent ridge suggests ritual or ceremonial significance, common in prehistoric funerary monuments of the region.

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