Megalithic tomb - court tomb, Baile Na Móna Íochtarach, Co. Waterford

Co. Waterford |

Megalithic Tombs

Megalithic tomb – court tomb, Baile Na Móna Íochtarach, Co. Waterford

Somebody chose this spot very deliberately. On a small headland in Baile Na Móna Íochtarach, with sea-cliffs dropping away roughly seventy metres to the east and a hundred and eighty metres to the south, a Neolithic court tomb sits in rough pasture as though simply waiting to be noticed. Court tombs are among the earliest megalithic monument types in Ireland, typically consisting of an open ceremonial forecourt leading into a roofed gallery divided by upright stones. Here, four stones define a court nearly five and a half metres wide, opening to the west into a gallery just under four metres long, itself divided into two chambers by a septal stone, with two portal stones framing the entrance. The positioning on high ground above open water is not unusual for this type of monument, but the degree to which the sea presses in on two sides gives this particular example an unusual quality of exposure.

The tomb was excavated in 1938 by T.G.E. Powell, whose findings were published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. The chambers had been disturbed before he got to them, which is a common frustration with monuments of this age and visibility, but enough survived to confirm the site's original purpose. Powell recovered fragments of cremated bone, two pottery vessels, one of them decorated, and a number of flint flakes. These are characteristic finds for a court tomb, suggesting funerary use and the kind of ritual activity, including the processing and interment of the dead, that such monuments were built to accommodate across Neolithic Ireland and Britain. The decorated pottery in particular points to a level of craftsmanship and intentionality that sits oddly against the windswept roughness of the setting today.

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