Barrow (Ring Barrow), Ballynagrana, Co. Tipperary

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Barrow (Ring Barrow), Ballynagrana, Co. Tipperary

Beneath a level field of improved pasture in Ballynagrana, Co. Tipperary, there lies a prehistoric monument that has left no mark on the surface whatsoever, was never recorded on any edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch maps, and yielded no human remains when excavated.

What it did produce were three small, strangely shaped hollows in the ancient ground surface, filled with dark soil, whose purpose has never been satisfactorily explained.

The site came to light during an archaeological excavation in 1935, when a circular ring-barrow was uncovered. A ring-barrow is a low burial mound, typically defined by a surrounding ditch, known as a fosse, and an outer earthen bank; this one measured roughly five metres in diameter. The excavation was reported by Seán P. Ó Ríordáin in 1936, and it was his account that documented the three peculiar features found cut into the original ground surface. Each pocket was about 0.6 metres in length and consisted of a circular section roughly six inches across, joined to a narrow elongated portion about three inches wide. The maximum depth was barely more than two and a half inches. The lighter-coloured fill in the narrower section indicated slightly less decomposed organic material, but no bones, ash, or recognisable burial deposit of any kind was identified. Ó Ríordáin cautiously raised the possibility that the pockets might once have held cremated remains entirely dissolved by soil acids over the centuries, while making clear this was speculation rather than conclusion. The monument itself, never marked on any map, is now entirely invisible at ground level, absorbed into the ordinary appearance of a working pasture field.

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