What is recorded here

Carn is a wide, flattened stone circle on a mountain terrace in County Cavan, old enough that Richardson saw it before the eighteenth century ended. Ó Ríordáin cut into its eastern edge in 1932 and found a burial slab, proving the heap was never merely decorative. The conifers around it have grown thick and dark, making the shallow chamber feel hidden rather than forgotten. People may have stacked those stones to mark a dead person, a boundary or a promise, but the chamber still answers the first of those possibilities.

First noted by Richardson in the early 18th century (Paterson, Gaffikin and Davies 1938, 147). Marked on all OS eds. Situated on a natural terrace, a short distance NE of the summit of Ballyheady Mountain, surrounded by a plantation of coniferous trees. A much-denuded, large, circular, now almost flat-topped cairn of large and small stones (dims. 28m NW-SE; 27.2m NE-SW; H 3.2m). A large slab is visible within a hole which has been dug into the lower edge of the cairn at ENE. It apparently formed part of the cist burial (CV014-043002-) investigated by Ó Ríordáin in 1932 (Ó Ríordáin 1933, 167-71). 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 This monument is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 (PO no. 7/1932).

Portal dolmen; dates to the Neolithic period. Its location on a prominent mountain terrace suggests it may have had ritual or ceremonial significance in the landscape.

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