Barrow (Ring Barrow), Carrowcloghagh, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Barrows
A ring of hawthorn marks the edge of something much older in this quiet pasture in north Mayo.
The monument at Carrowcloghagh is a ring barrow, a type of prehistoric funerary monument typically consisting of a central platform or mound encircled by a ditch and outer bank, and this particular example sits at the southern end of a gentle rise in rolling limestone grassland, with the Deel River passing some two hundred metres to the north-west. Nephin Mountain fills the horizon to the south-south-west, and the Nephin Beg Range lines the western skyline, lending the site a sense of deliberate placement in a wider landscape.
The structure itself is modest but carefully preserved by the earth. A flat, level central platform of eight metres in diameter is defined by a shallow, flat-based fosse, the technical term for a ditch, running roughly 2.4 metres wide and between 35 and 40 centimetres deep. Outside that fosse sits a low but well-defined bank, constructed from a mix of earth and stone, measuring around two metres wide on the north-east side and slightly broader, at 2.7 metres, on the south-west. The overall diameter from mid-bank measures roughly 14.5 metres north to south and 15.5 metres east to west. Most unusually, there is a deliberate gap in the bank at the east-north-east, with a corresponding causeway across the fosse leading to the central platform, suggesting the monument was designed with a specific point of entry. A field fence now abuts the outer bank at the south, and hawthorn trees ring the entire perimeter.
What makes the location particularly striking is not this single monument in isolation, but the density of prehistoric activity concentrated in the surrounding fields. A second ring barrow lies roughly 80 metres to the south-east, a possible cairn sits around 60 metres to the south, and a further cluster of ring barrows and possible barrows is distributed across adjacent fields within a range of 100 to 250 metres in several directions. A possible ring cairn, a related monument type in which a stone ring rather than a bank defines the space, lies around 300 metres to the south-south-west. Taken together, this stretch of Mayo limestone grassland reads as a prehistoric funerary landscape, quietly intact beneath the grazing.
