What is recorded here

Cappaghkennedy is a wedge tomb in County Clare, Ireland, containing a boulder marked with five cupmarks arranged in a circle. Westropp drew the stone in 1905, and Elaine Lynch photographed the same pattern in 2024, linking both accounts to the same buried chamber. The marks may have guided burial, ceremony or memory, yet they still appear as a small deliberate design inside an ancient grave.

Within Cappaghkennedy wedge tomb (CL010-028----). Westopp (1905, 223) included a stylised drawing of what he termed a ‘basin stone’ within SW corner of the wedge tomb. It appeared to measure c. 0.75m in length and 0.6m in width and it showed a boulder with what seem like 5 cupmarks in a circle on its upper surface. A stone with five apparent cupmarks on one surface was noted within the tomb by Elaine Lynch in 2024. A photograph of the stone in the Clare Library photographic archive shows a central cupmark with four around it (https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/photographic_archive.htm). This may be the stone as drawn by Westropp and is classified as a form of rock art. Compiled by: Mary Tunney Date of upload: 26 November 2025

Likely dating to the Neolithic period, the rock art within Cappaghkennedy wedge tomb may have held ritual or symbolic significance, possibly linked to funerary practices or spiritual beliefs of early farming communities. The term 'basin stone' suggests a possible ceremonial or water-related function, though its exact meaning remains unclear.

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