Cist, Noughaval, Co. Clare

Co. Clare |

Burial Sites

Cist, Noughaval, Co. Clare

At the centre of a low cairn in Noughaval, County Clare, sits a burial cist so modest in its dimensions that it is easy to underestimate what it represents.

A cist is a stone-lined grave box, typically constructed during the Bronze Age, formed from upright slabs arranged to enclose a small chamber. This one measures roughly 1.6 metres in length and just 0.75 metres in width, with the side stones standing only about 15 centimetres above the ground surface, giving the whole structure a flat, almost sunken quality that makes it easy to overlook from a distance.

The construction follows a simple but deliberate logic. Two parallel slabs are set on their long edges and aligned east to west, a orientation seen in many prehistoric burial contexts across Ireland. The northern stone is the larger of the two, running the full internal length of the chamber at 1.6 metres, while the southern stone is somewhat shorter at 0.9 metres, though both are of similar height and thinness. Their eastern ends are positioned directly opposite one another, suggesting careful placement rather than rough improvisation. The whole thing sits within a cairn, which is a mound of loose stones heaped over a burial, and the low profile of this one implies that much of the original mound material may have spread or been removed over time.

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