Megalithic structure, Killanena, Co. Clare
Co. Clare |
Megalithic Tombs
In the townland of Killanena, in the east Clare uplands not far from the shore of Lough Derg, there stands a megalithic structure that has yet to receive so much as a formal public description.
It is on the record, classified and numbered, but the details that would tell you what it looks like, how large it is, and what kind of monument it might be remain unpublished.
Killanena is a quietly layered place. The area takes its name from the early medieval saint Naonán, and a ruined church associated with that foundation survives nearby, suggesting that people have found reasons to mark this landscape for well over a thousand years. Megalithic monuments in County Clare range from wedge tombs, the most common prehistoric monument type in Ireland and typically dating from the late Neolithic into the early Bronze Age, to standing stones and court cairns. Without more specific information it is not possible to say which category this particular structure belongs to, or what condition it is in. That ambiguity is itself part of what makes it worth noting. East Clare has a relatively modest public profile compared with the Burren to the west, yet the upland areas around Slieve Bernagh and the Lough Derg shoreline preserve a considerable scatter of prehistoric remains, many of them little visited and some still poorly understood.