What is recorded here

No visible chamber exists there now, but beneath the stony ground of Letterkeen, human and animal bones still wait inside a small stone box built during the Bronze Age. The cist lay under a burial mound and near other lost graves, marking a place where people repeated grief, memory and ceremony across generations. Later life overlaid the older deaths with a rath, suggesting the area remained charged long after the first flames went cold.

Located on a rise in the middle of a plateau bounded by the Goulaun River on one side and by the steep rise of Letterkeen Hill on the other, in an area of mountainous and boggy terrain. This cist was excavated (E000015) in 1950 by Ó 'Ríordáin and Mac Dermott (1950-51, 92-93). It consisted of a short, sub-rectangular slab-lined cist (0.65m NE-SW; 0.55m NW-SE; D c. 0.45m), with the floor cobbled with rounded pebbles, and roofed with a single capstone (1.4m x 1m). Cremated bones were found within the fill of loose sandy clay, and two pottery vases, placed mouth down on the floor, covered small quantities of cremated bone. The bones included human bones of two adults, and a child of about 14 years, and also some animal bones. The cist underlay c. 0.4m of stony material associated with a possible burial cairn (MA046-004001-). Two other cists (MA046-004002-; MA046-004004-) and two pit burial (MA046-004005-; MA046-004006-) were also found. All were dated to the Bronze Age. At a later period, these features were overlain by a rath (MA046-004007-). Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 9 April 2019

Cist in Letterkeen is a small stone burial chamber, likely dating to the Early Christian or Bronze Age period. Its location suggests it may be associated with early funerary practices in a remote upland landscape, though its specific cultural significance remains unclear due to limited contextual information.

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