Dermot & Granias Bed

This well-preserved tomb, excavated in 1959 (O'Kelly 1960), is sited just below the summit of a hillock which forms the south-western spur of Mauherslieve. A gallery, 7.2m long, is centrally placed in a cairn, 15m to 16m in diameter, surrounded by a kerb of inward-sloping slabs. Between the kerb and the gallery there is an incomplete circle of stones, c.11m in diameter. Inside this there is an irregular arc of large stones beyond the front half of the southern side of the gallery and another beyond the entire northern side. These formed the edge of an elaborate construction that enclosed the sides of the gallery. They link with a short, irregular double line of stones just in front of the gallery. A septal-stone divides the gallery into a short portico and a main chamber. The former, 2.15m long, narrows from 2.4m wide at the front to 2.1m at the septal-stone. Two sidestones form each of its sides and two low stones set end to end form a low sill at the front. There are incised lines, possibly anciently scored, on the inner face of the eastern orthostat at the northern side. Two pillar-like stones, one towards the front and the other towards the rear, stand on the main axis of the tomb and support the largest of three roof-slabs that partially roof the portico. A cist about 1m square is built against the southern side of the portico. The main chamber, 4.3m long and 1.25m wide at the septal-stone, lacks a backstone. Three sidestones form its S side, four the N side, and it is covered by four substantial roofstones. Pad-stones are interposed between some of the sidestones on the N side of the gallery and three such orthostats flank the S side. The excavation revealed a row of buttress-stones outside both lines of outer-walling. Twenty-one cremated burials were found at the site. Five were in the portico, one in the main chamber, twelve to the S of the tomb and three just outside the kerb at the SW. Among the few artifacts recovered at the site are some worked pieces of flint and chert, among them a plano-convex flint knife, and some pottery sherds which were associated with one of the burials. (De Valera and Ó Nualláin 1982, 84-6, No. 6) The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Tipperary. Vol. 1 - North Tipperary' compiled by Jean Farrelly and Caimin O'Brien (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2002). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 22 September 2008

Portal dolmen; dates to the Neolithic period. Its well-preserved gallery and central placement within a large cairn highlight its significance as an important ritual or burial site in early Irish prehistory.