Barrow, Grange, Co. Sligo

Co. Sligo |

Barrows

Barrow, Grange, Co. Sligo

On a low natural rise in the fertile pastureland of Grange in County Sligo, there is a small earthen enclosure that resists easy interpretation.

It is oval in plan, measuring roughly 10.5 metres on its longest axis and 8 metres across, and it is ringed on all sides by an earthen bank. The interior slopes gently downward to the east and, when inspected in 1994, was entirely featureless. No finds, no structures, no obvious clues as to what once happened here.

A barrow is a general term for a prehistoric burial mound or earthen funerary monument, though the word covers a wide variety of forms, and not all enclosures labelled as barrows turn out to be straightforwardly sepulchral. What makes this one quietly odd is its modest but deliberate proportions. The surrounding bank is uneven in profile, averaging less than half a metre in height for most of its circuit, but rising to 1.65 metres on the north-western side, as though the ground was shaped with some particular orientation in mind, or perhaps simply settled unevenly over the centuries. The outer edge of the bank is described as indistinct, which suggests the monument has softened considerably into the surrounding pasture. The site does command a notably good view of the surrounding landscape, which is often a feature of prehistoric monuments in the west of Ireland, where elevation and visibility seem to have carried meaning beyond the merely practical.

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Pete F
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