Barrow, Ballard, Co. Sligo
Co. Sligo |
Barrows
On a west-facing slope in County Sligo, partially swallowed by scrub, sits a circular earthwork that most people walking past would take for a natural rise in the ground.
It is classified as a barrow, the catch-all term for a prehistoric burial mound, and its modest dimensions, roughly 11.7 metres east to west and 11.5 metres north to south, place it firmly in the category of things that reward close attention rather than distant admiration.
The monument consists of a slightly raised circular area enclosed by a low bank of earth and stone, around 3.3 metres wide and just 0.3 metres high. Notably, there is no fosse, meaning no surrounding ditch was cut to provide material for the bank, which distinguishes it from some other barrow types where an outer depression is a defining feature. The perimeter in particular has become thickly overgrown with scrub, which obscures the bank's full extent and makes the earthwork harder to read as a coherent shape. It sits on a low ridge in pasture, a setting that is quietly typical of prehistoric funerary monuments in the west of Ireland, positioned in the landscape with a deliberateness that time has done its best to disguise.