Cairn, Kilbride, Co. Mayo

Co. Mayo |

Cairns

Cairn, Kilbride, Co. Mayo

In the cutaway bog near Killaturly Lough in County Mayo, a roughly circular heap of stones breaks the flat, peat-covered surface, measuring just over ten metres across.

It is not especially large, and the heather and bog growth that smother it make it easy to mistake for a natural feature of the landscape. But the stones are not random, and what may lie at the centre of this cairn is quietly intriguing.

At the heart of the mound there is a shallow, sub-circular depression, roughly two and a half metres across, which suggests the cairn has been disturbed at some point. Within that depression, on its northern edge, a partly peat-covered cluster of stones has been identified, accompanied by a single upright stone slab standing about 65 centimetres high. At the far end of this slab, a second stone can just be made out, apparently set at a right angle to the first. Together, these features point towards what may be a cist at the cairn's core. A cist is a small stone-lined box, typically used in prehistoric burial practice to contain the remains of the dead, sometimes along with grave goods. The thick layers of peat and heather make it impossible to say with any certainty what is preserved underneath, and the structure resists easy interpretation. It sits in a broad, flat expanse of cutaway bog, with the ground rising to the northwest and Killaturly Lough lying roughly 400 metres to the northeast, lending the whole scene a remote, unresolved quality that no amount of fieldwork has yet fully dispelled.

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Pete F
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