Megalithic tomb - wedge tomb, Dromduvane, Co. Cork

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Megalithic Tombs

Megalithic tomb – wedge tomb, Dromduvane, Co. Cork

At the foot of an isolated rock knoll in Dromduvane, County Cork, the remains of a wedge tomb sit in a state of quiet collapse, its stones still arranged in a way that makes the original intention legible, if only just.

Wedge tombs are megalithic burial monuments built during the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, characterised by a gallery that narrows and lowers from one end to the other, typically oriented with the wider, taller end facing west. This one conforms to that pattern, though much of it has fallen or shifted over the millennia.

What survives is a ruined gallery measuring roughly 3.75 metres in length and 0.9 metres wide at its eastern end. Three overlapping stones remain on the northern side of the gallery, with a single stone holding its position to the south, and an inset backstone still in place at the eastern end. The western end, which would once have formed the entrance, is now open. Fallen outer-wall stones lie scattered nearby, and there are faint traces of the earthen or stony mound that would originally have covered the structure, visible to the south of the gallery. The knoll at whose base the tomb was placed may well have been a deliberate choice by those who built it, a conspicuous natural feature that gave the monument a degree of presence in the landscape. Séan Ó Nualláin documented the site in 1989, and his record remains the primary source for understanding its layout.

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