Megalithic Structures — Commons (carlingford Par.)

The following description is derived from both the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Louth' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1986) and the 'Archaeological Survey of County Louth' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1991). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 17 July 2007 This tomb consists of the remains of a cairn, some 22m long, incorporating two ruined galleries with back stones set 2m apart. A stone fence crosses the middle of the SW gallery, runs along its N side, skirts the back of the NE gallery and then turns eastwards about 1.5m beyond the entrance to that gallery. There are no traces of a cairn to the W, N or E of this; the surviving portion, to the S of the wall, is up to 8m wide. The front of the SW gallery is represented by two entrance jambs with a flanking courtstone to the N. The gallery is 10.3m long and would seem to have been about 1.3m in average width. A pair of jambs 3.3m E of the back stone suggests a division of the gallery into three chambers of roughly equal length. The gallery sides are largely missing or concealed. Three stones at the NE represent the N side of the front chamber; to the S, two contiguous stones of the rear chamber survive and there are two more sidestones to the E of the segmenting jambs. The NE gallery is 4.4m long and averages 1.2m wide. It is divided into two chambers by a pair of jambs which flank a low sill, and a similar arrangement marks the entrance. The sides of the front chamber are each constructed of two stones, as apparently were those of the second, though only one stone survives on the S side. The chambers are more or less equal in length, with the rear chamber narrowing towards its slightly gabled back stone (PRIA (C) 1960, 128).