Boulder-burial, Uragh, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Burial Sites
At Uragh in south-west Kerry, a large boulder sits propped on a support stone in rough pasture, looking at first glance like something that simply rolled there and got stuck.
It did not. This is a boulder-burial, a prehistoric funerary form in which a substantial capstone is raised above the ground on low supports, creating a modest chamber beneath, distinct from the grander portal tombs but sharing something of the same intent: the deliberate, careful placement of stone over the dead.
What makes this particular spot quietly remarkable is the density of monuments gathered within a very small area. The boulder, measuring up to 1.58 metres at its widest, is the northernmost of three boulder-burials clustered here, the other two sitting just 1.5 metres to the south-east and south-west respectively. All three lie close to a multiple-stone circle, one of those Bronze Age ceremonial rings formed from several upright stones arranged in a rough circuit. The support stone beneath the main boulder is partly hidden by accumulated peat, which has built up around the base over the millennia, obscuring some of the structure's original form. Eileen Twohig recorded and discussed the site in 1987, and it was later catalogued in the Archaeological Inventory of County Kerry.
The grouping of three boulder-burials so close together, alongside a stone circle, suggests this corner of Uragh functioned as a focal point for ritual or burial activity in prehistory, a small but deliberate landscape of the dead set into ground that has since gone back to rough grazing.