What is recorded here
You can still walk the long chamber and watch the roof stones lean against each other like a roof built for a storm that never ended. The court tomb in Formoyle, County Mayo, is one of the old megalthic burial places of western Ireland, and its shape suggests people who wanted the dead to keep company with the living sky. Maybe a family placed its dead there during a time when rain came through the fields and firelight moved between houses. The stones do not explain themselves, but they still hold the shape of that choice.
See linked document with details from Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin, Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland. Volume II. County Mayo. (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1964)
Date of upload: 6 January 2012
Court tomb, dating to the Neolithic period (c. 3500–2500 BCE). These tombs are significant as some of the earliest ceremonial and burial structures in Ireland, reflecting early communal social organisation and funerary practices.
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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