What is recorded here
Thirty-five metres of buried chamber stretch beneath the Ballinamore golf course, where entrance stones still mark a doorway built before written memory. People may have walked past this tomb while tending pasture or playing games on the same low ground, unaware that dead ancestors waited beneath the grass. The court tomb does not belong to a museum case; it belongs to the living landscape, patient under foot traffic and rain.
Located in pasture with some scrub on undulating low-lying ground within Ballinamore golf club. A mound (dims 35m NW-SE; c. 15m NE-SW; H 1m-1.5m) has the remains of a court with entrance jambstones at either end. There was also evidence of chambers at the NW end and at the centre of the cairn. The NW end of the cairn was damaged in 1999. (de Valera and Ó Nualláin 1972, 71-2)
The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Leitrim' compiled by Michael J. Moore (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2003). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.
Date of upload: 23 September 2008
See linked document with details from Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin, Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland. Volume III. Counties Galway, Roscommon, Leitrim, Longford, Westmeath, Laoighis, Offaly, Kildare, Cavan. (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1972).
Court tomb, dating to the Neolithic period (c. 4000–2500 BCE). This tomb type is significant as an early form of megalithic funerary architecture, reflecting communal burial practices and social organisation in prehistoric Ireland.
The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.
- What survives
- Recorded monument
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