Boulder-burial, Clonglaskan, Co. Cork

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Burial Sites

Boulder-burial, Clonglaskan, Co. Cork

At Clonglaskan in County Cork, a large flat boulder sits close to the ground with what appears to be a deliberate support stone tucked beneath its north-eastern edge, holding it at a slight elevation.

This is a boulder-burial, a monument type found mainly in the south-west of Ireland, in which a substantial slab or rounded stone is raised just off the ground, often over a small pit or cist thought to contain human remains. The arrangement is understated to the point of invisibility if you do not know what you are looking at, which is perhaps why these monuments tend to attract less attention than the more vertical stone circles or standing stones that punctuate the same landscape.

The principal boulder measures roughly 2.05 metres by 1.3 metres and sits about a metre above the ground. What makes the Clonglaskan example particularly interesting is that it does not sit in isolation. The south-western slab of a nearby stone row, a linear arrangement of upright stones that would once have formed a deliberate ceremonial or territorial alignment, rests directly on top of this boulder, suggesting either a deliberate physical connection between the two monument types or a later reuse of the boulder as a convenient foundation. A second boulder, slightly larger at 2.2 metres by 1.3 metres, lies approximately 3.5 metres to the east. The relationship between the two boulders is not fully resolved, but their proximity and scale point to a complex of related prehistoric activity on this spot. The site was documented by the archaeologist Seán Ó Nualláin in 1988, as part of his broader survey of stone rows and associated monuments across Cork and Kerry.

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