Barrow - mound barrow, Glassallen, Co. Meath

Roughly twelve metres across and rising less than two metres at its highest eastern point, it carries no visible carvings, no collapsed stonework, no obvious entrance. What it does carry is age, of a kind that tends to get lost between more celebrated monuments.

A mound barrow is, in its simplest form, a burial mound, earth heaped over the remains of the dead during the prehistoric period, most commonly the Bronze Age, though examples span several millennia. The Glassallen mound sits just off the north-eastern side of a north-west to south-east ridge, a placement that would have given it a degree of prominence in the ancient landscape even if that prominence is not immediately obvious today. Its existence was confirmed through vertical aerial photographs taken in the 1970s, which revealed the circular feature from above before any ground-level survey could fix its dimensions precisely. The mound measures approximately twelve metres north to south and just under eleven metres east to west, with the ground rising slightly toward the east, giving it a gentle asymmetry. Beyond its shape and its grass covering, it offers no distinguishing features to the casual eye.