Barrow (Ring Barrow), Liscottle, Co. Mayo

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Barrow (Ring Barrow), Liscottle, Co. Mayo

On the western edge of a modern rectangular field in Liscottle, County Mayo, something circular and very old sits half-consumed by hawthorn and blackthorn.

It is easy to miss, and harder still to read. The monument measures roughly ten metres across, a gently raised circular form defined by a low earthen bank that incorporates stones in places. At its best-preserved arc, running from east to south-west, the bank stands less than half a metre above the interior and just over half a metre on the outer face. To the west and north it has been almost entirely levelled. The centre of the interior appears to dome slightly upward, though the overgrowth makes any close inspection difficult.

What exactly this feature is remains genuinely uncertain. It may be a ring-barrow, a type of prehistoric funerary monument in which a burial, often cremated remains, was placed beneath or within a low mound and enclosed by a surrounding bank and sometimes a ditch. Ring-barrows in Ireland generally date to the Bronze Age, though the form persisted across a long stretch of prehistory. The difficulty here is that the monument is degraded enough that confident classification is not possible. It sits on a slight rise with decent views of the surrounding landscape, which is consistent with the kinds of elevated or prominent positions that prehistoric communities sometimes chose for their dead, though the views are not extensive. The bank is largely earthen, the stones within it perhaps incidental, and the whole thing is now ringed by scrub growth that has effectively taken the site back into the ground.

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Pete F
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