Court tomb in Doonshaskin, County Sligo (SL005-068----)

The following description is taken E. Cody’s published account (2015): ‘The central-court tomb at Doonshaskin is sited on a slight ridge in low-lying pasture just over one km from the coast. The outlook from it is now largely restricted by high field hedges. What lay under the bushes there is portrayed in Fig. 3 where stones shown cross-hatched stand upright in the ground in their original positions. Stones shown in outline are either clearly displaced or of uncertain status. Readily apparent are two chambers lying east and west of each other and about 4.5m apart. The western chamber is some 4m long and 2.6m wide. Its northern side is formed by four stones lying end to end. A stone at the inner face of the westernmost of the four sidestones is a jamb-stone; more-or-less opposite it is another jamb-stone and this stone and two other set stones either side of a partly buried stone represent the south side of the chamber. At the east end of the chamber are two opposed jamb stones inside the lines of the chamber sides. These are entrance jambs between which access was gained to the chamber while the two jamb-stones at the west end mark a point of segmentation between the chamber and another no trace of which now remains. The eastern chamber, some 3.5m long and as much as 2.9m wide, is represented by two entrance jamb stones at its front or west end, two sides tones at the north side with a gap between them and three stones at the south side. This chamber, like the western example, is open at the rear and is but the forward example of what was at least a two-chambered gallery. The stone outlined in bold on the drawing is a lintel which originally lay on top of the entrance jambs to the eastern chamber. Between the lintel and the front of the western chamber there are a number of displaced and partly-buried stones. The upright stones of the two chambers range from about 0.25m to 0.7m in exposed height. The court, little of which survives, is represented by three set stones, 0.25m to 0.4m high, two to the north of the entrance to the western chamber and one to the north of the entrance to the eastern chamber. These are the remains of the northern half of the court. It is expected that there was a matching semi-circular setting of court stones at the south but this is no longer apparent. It may be that some of the displaced and partly-buried stones lying between the two chambers and already referred to may have served as court stones. The gap between the fronts of the opposed chambers is 4.5m east-west and this represents the greatest width of the court. The court length, its north-south dimension, is not now known but may have been a little greater than its width. In addition to the structural stones of the two galleries and the court there are some other securely-set uprights to the north of the eastern chamber, the precise role of all of which is somewhat uncertain. One stands just outside it; three more form a slight arc aligned roughly north-west to south-east to the north of the last and to the north of these there is a line of three tallish stones. These last three are about 4m north of the gallery and like it are aligned east-west They are the tallish stones, 0.45m to 1.1m high, that were visible before the bushes were cleared from the monument. As may be detected from the plan, some of the chamber and court stones have flat inner and rounded outer faces; these were boulders of roughly oval outline that have been split longitudinally by the tomb builders and then set on edge. Such split boulders were frequently used in court tomb construction. The outer pecked line on the drawing combined with the curving fence line depicts the current outline of the cairn that was heaped up around the tomb structure. Its original outline is not now apparent but the three stones, already mentioned, standing 4m north of the eastern end of the tomb may have formed part of a kerbed perimeter to the cairn. On comparison with other central-court tombs the cairn may have been of double trapezoid form (Ó Nualláin 1976, 105), i.e., broad at mid-length and narrowing to both ends, in this case to east and to west. Originally it would have reached to the height of the galleries which would have been roofed with large slabs and the cairn would have helped stabilize the structure. Though the galleries were encased in the cairn the court area would have remained as an open space where it is presumed people would have gathered to participate in rites and rituals of a varied nature, some of which undoubtedly related to death and burial. The court would have been entered via a narrow passage, probably slab-lined, through the cairn. There is now no surface trace of this entrance but it would have opened from either the north side of the cairn or, on the basis of comparison with other central-court tombs, more likely from the south side.’ (Cody 2015) Compiled by: Paul Walsh Date of upload: 24 December 2015