Megalithic structure, Lissadrone, Co. Mayo

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Megalithic Tombs

Megalithic structure, Lissadrone, Co. Mayo

In the south-east corner of a pasture field near Lissadrone in County Mayo, there is a low mound of earth and stones that nobody has been able to fully explain.

What makes it quietly odd is not its size, which is modest enough at roughly three to four metres north to south and half a metre high, but the two upright boulders set into its western side. Standing about 1.2 metres apart, they are clearly placed with some intention, one reaching nearly a metre in height at the northern end, the other a larger stone towards the south. The arrangement suggests something deliberate, possibly prehistoric, but the mound appears on none of the Ordnance Survey six-inch maps, which means it was either overlooked by nineteenth-century surveyors or had not yet been recognised as significant when those surveys were carried out.

The structure sits on gently elevated ground, which is a setting commonly associated with prehistoric burial monuments and field boundaries across the west of Ireland. Whether this mound belongs to that tradition is genuinely unknown. A hawthorn tree has pushed up through the northern end, and the whole thing is engulfed in dense brambles, both of which speak to long neglect. Then, in January 2017, a substantial heap of soil, stones, and general field clearance debris, measuring four to five metres across and rising to 1.3 metres in height, was pushed against the southern end of the mound, with further material deposited along the western side. This effectively buried a significant portion of whatever was there, making any assessment of the structure's age or purpose considerably harder. Its function and date remain uncertain.

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Pete F
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