What is recorded here

Wedge tomb in Gleninsheen stands on a slight Clare rise where rough pasture meets exposed limestone, its broken chamber still pointing east-west inside a faint oval mound. People built it with large dressed stones during the Bronze Age, likely burying the dead beneath a capstone now reduced to scattered slabs. It belonged to a busy landscape, since two other wedge tombs and the famous Gleninsheen gorget lie within a few hundred metres. The tomb is no longer perfect, but it remains a visible marker of the community that shaped stone on this edge of the world.

On a very slight rise in mixed rough pasture and exposed limestone pavement, overlooked by slightly higher ground to the S and W. Described by de Valera and Ó Nualláin (1961, 9) as a considerably broken and disturbed wedge tomb (est. L 3.3m; Wth 1.25m at E, 1.8m at W), orientated E-W and embedded in a barely traceable oval-shaped mound (c. 9.5m E-W; est. 6m N-S; max. H c. 1m). A later field wall extends E and W from the mound, on which de Valera and Ó Nualláin (ibid.) noted then recently damaged flat slabs. The upstanding S sidestone (L 4.25m; H 0.95m at E, 1.2m at W; T 0.2-0.3m) was dressed on its straight top edge, while its E and W side-edges were quite straight but undressed. There was a thin vertical crack near the centre of this slab. Only a small piece (L 0.9m; 0.2m; T 0.25m) of the N sidestone remained upstanding; a flat slab (L 2.15m) on the N part of the mound may be the rest of this sidestone. A small stone (L 0.85m; H 0.6m) orientated N-S between the upstanding sidestones was thought to possibly mark the W end of the chamber. De Valera and Ó Nualláin (ibid.) considered two tall tapering stones (H 1.4-1.55m; L 0.7-0.9m) just W of this endstone to most likely be related to the later field wall at the mound. Among other prostrate slabs on the mound, some may be fallen endstones from the E end of the chamber; Westropp (1899, 381) found both ends still standing. A large irregular slab (L 2.2m) at the S side was suggested by de Valera and Ó Nualláin (ibid.) as possibly part of the tomb’s capstone. Westropp (ibid.) noted that the monument was ‘perfect’ in 1862. Approximately 100m to the NNE is a wedge tomb (CL005-136001-), while c. 165m to the SSW is another (CL005-133----). The famous Gleninsheen gorget and a bronze armlet (NMI 1938:8587) were found c. 440m to the E. Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy and Conn Herriott Date of upload: 29-9-2025

Wedge tomb, dating to the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age (c. 2500–1000 BCE). Its location on a limestone outcrop suggests it was part of a broader funerary and ritual landscape in the Gleninsheen area, associated with early farming communities.

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