What is recorded here

Wedge tomb in Canrooska is a chambered burial place on the upper slopes of Barraboy Mountain, where a narrow stone gallery lies half swallowed by bog and faces south toward Glengarriff Harbour. People may have carried the dead into that small tilting chamber, laid them beside the river’s headwaters and stepped back out into the wide Atlantic light. The peat has since closed over most of the work, leaving only enough stone behind to show that the land once shaped death as deliberately as it shapes rain.

This is the most northerly of two wedge tombs situated on a gently sloping terrace in blanket bog at the head of the Canrooska River valley on the upper slopes of Barraboy Mountain; there are fine views from the monument to the S overlooking Glengarriff Harbour and Bantry Bay. It consists of a gallery (L c. 3.4m; Wth 1.35 at W, narrowing to c. 0.85m at E), aligned ENE-WSW, largely enveloped in peat. The N side is formed by four stones and three are visible along the S side; the E end is closed by an inset backstone. The W end is partially closed by a transversely set septal-like slab abutting the W stone of the S side; this leaves an entrance gap of 0.5m. A single, close-set outer-wall stone is exposed along the N side. The gallery is covered by three partially displaced roofstones. The W stone (2.6m x 1.6m; T 0.15-0.2m) partially overlaps the second (1.5m x 1.4m; T 0.2m). The third (1.7m x 0.8m; T c. 0.15m) covers the E end of the gallery. The second wedge tomb (CO090-021001-) is 20m to the S and there is a standing stone (CO090-034----) c. 200m to the NW. The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 5' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2009). Date of upload: 22 December 2009

Wedge tomb, dating to the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age (c. 2500–1000 BCE). Its location in a remote upland setting suggests ritual or ceremonial significance, typical of wedge tombs found across western Ireland.

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