Cromlechs, Doonanarroo, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Megalithic Tombs
On a stretch of County Mayo landscape that has never attracted much attention, there are megalithic structures known locally as cromlechs, a term once used loosely across Ireland and Britain to describe any large prehistoric stone arrangement, though it most often refers to portal tombs or the remnants of chambered cairns whose covering mounds have long since eroded away.
What remains at Doonanarroo are the kinds of stones that tend to puzzle casual passers-by and reward those who pause to look carefully.
The principal scholarly treatment of these structures appears in the 1964 survey by Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin, who catalogued the megalithic tombs of County Mayo as part of a broader national inventory. Their work placed Doonanarroo within a county that contains a remarkable concentration of prehistoric funerary monuments, from court tombs, which are long cairns with a semicircular forecourt used for communal burial and possibly ritual, to portal tombs and passage tombs. Mayo's density of such sites reflects both the early agricultural settlement of the west of Ireland and the durability of the stone used in their construction. De Valera and Ó Nualláin's survey remained for decades the definitive reference for anyone attempting to locate or understand these monuments, and Doonanarroo earned its place within that record.
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