Megalithic tomb - wedge tomb, Cill Mhuirbhigh, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Megalithic Tombs
Two of the façade stones that once formed the entrance to a prehistoric burial chamber are now quietly absorbed into a field wall on Inis Mór, their original purpose still discernible if you know what you are looking for.
The monument sits on a level stretch of limestone pavement in the part of the island known as Fearann an Choirce, within the townland of Cill Mhuirbhigh, with the shoreline visible to the north. It is a wedge tomb, a type of megalithic structure built during the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, characterised by a long stone gallery that is wider and higher at the western end and tapers gradually toward the east. The orientation and narrowing shape were deliberate, and thousands of these monuments were constructed across Ireland, though relatively few survive in anything like their original form.
This one is in considerable ruin. What remains is a gallery stretching roughly 3.5 metres in length, defined by two opposing sidestones that narrow from about 1.5 metres at the western end to 1.2 metres at the east. A single outer wall stone survives on the southern side. Inside the gallery at the western end, a jamb-like stone still stands upright, hinting at how the entrance was once framed. The large slab lying to the north, partially buried beneath a later field wall, may originally have served as a roofstone. Faint traces of the earthen or rubble mound that would have covered the structure are still visible to the north and south. The tomb was noted by the antiquarian T. J. Westropp in 1895 and again by O'Flanagan in 1927, suggesting it has been a known but unremarkable presence in the landscape for well over a century, slowly losing ground to the walls and weather that have reshaped everything around it.