Cairn, Carrownamaddoo, Co. Sligo

Co. Sligo |

Cairns

Cairn, Carrownamaddoo, Co. Sligo

Not every cairn, a mound of heaped stones often associated with ancient burial or ritual, turns out to be what it first appears.

In the upper reaches of the Ox Mountains in County Sligo, on the boundary between Carrownamaddoo and Cloonagh townlands, one such structure was recorded and then quietly reassessed. The conclusion was a deflating one: it was probably a relatively modern boundary marker rather than a genuine antiquity.

The site's doubtful credentials were compounded by its absence from the 1837 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, one of the most thorough cartographic undertakings of nineteenth-century Ireland and a standard reference point for distinguishing older features from later ones. A structure not recorded by that survey, sitting precisely on a townland boundary, fits the profile of something practical and recent rather than prehistoric. The stones have since been removed entirely, leaving no physical trace on the ground.

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