Megalithic structure, Park, Co. Waterford
Co. Waterford |
Megalithic Tombs
Sometimes the most intriguing archaeological sites are the ones that no longer exist, or perhaps never quite were what someone claimed. At a quietly significant location in the Parish of Rathgormuck in County Waterford, three stones were recorded in 1948 as forming a megalithic structure measuring fourteen feet by four feet. The structure has since vanished, and the original classification is now considered unlikely to have been correct in the first place.
The site sits towards the bottom of a south-facing slope, with a stream running roughly west-northwest to east-southeast along its southern edge. It lies within an early ecclesiastical enclosure recorded under the name Cíll Eoghan, a place-name documented by P. Power in his study of the place-names of the Decies, published by Cork University Press in 1952. The three stones in question sat just to the west of a nearby cairn, and were noted by P. Lyons in a 1948 journal article that was primarily concerned with a double bullaun at the same location. A bullaun is a large stone with one or more cup-shaped hollows, commonly found at early Christian sites in Ireland and often associated with ritual or medicinal use. Lyons's passing description of the stones as a megalithic structure appears to have been provisional at best, and subsequent assessment suggests the identification does not hold up.
