Cairn, Glennaveel, Co. Galway

Co. Galway |

Cairns

Cairn, Glennaveel, Co. Galway

On the summit of Knockroe, a partly wooded hill to the south-west of Abbeyknockmoy in County Galway, three prehistoric cairns sit in uncomfortable proximity to the relay stations that now share their hilltop.

Cairns, in the Irish context, are mounds of loose stones raised over prehistoric burials or as territorial markers, and these three have not fared well in the centuries since they were built. All are described as denuded, meaning the stones have been robbed out or scattered over time, and the modern infrastructure on the summit has added further damage to what was already a compromised group of monuments.

The largest of the three occupies the highest point of the hill, at an elevation of 554 feet above sea level. It is roughly circular, about twelve metres across, and was at some point pressed into service as a trigonometrical station, one of the survey points used by cartographers to triangulate and map the landscape. A second cairn sits about twelve metres to the south, also circular, nine metres in diameter and still standing to a height of around 1.6 metres; it now has a modern concrete trigonometrical pillar planted directly on top of it. A third and smaller cairn, five metres across and just half a metre high, lies about fourteen metres to the north-east of the largest. The three are close enough together to suggest they formed a deliberate grouping, though the exact nature and date of their original construction is not recorded. What survives is fragmentary, the archaeology layered under and around the very structures built to measure the surrounding countryside.

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Pete F
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