Megalithic tomb - wedge tomb, Liscullaun, Co. Clare

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Megalithic Tombs

Megalithic tomb – wedge tomb, Liscullaun, Co. Clare

A prehistoric burial monument that does not appear on any Ordnance Survey historic mapping is, by definition, a place that slipped through the documentary record for a very long time.

The wedge tomb at Liscullaun in County Clare is precisely that: a megalithic structure sitting on top of a small knoll in rough pasture, the land falling away sharply to the northwest and northeast, with distant mountains visible to the east, yet unknown to cartographers until the 1990s. Wedge tombs are among the most common megalithic tomb types in Ireland, generally dating to the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, roughly 2500 to 2000 BC, and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped plan of their galleries. This one is modest in scale but quietly complete in its own fragmentary way.

The monument was identified in 1995 during a survey conducted for the East Clare Community Co-Op, Scarriff, when Paul Walsh of Ordnance Survey Ireland noted its existence. What survives above ground is a raised rectangular area measuring approximately 2.5 metres east to west and 2 metres north to south, defined on three sides by upright slabs: one along the southern edge, one to the west, and one to the north. The tomb is open to the east, which is consistent with the typical orientation of wedge tombs, many of which face broadly westward or are aligned with the setting sun, though here the entrance faces the opposite direction. The three slabs are leaning, with the southern and northern stones tilting southward and the western stone tilting west, suggesting considerable age and ground movement over millennia. Beneath the raised interior, which stands roughly half a metre above the surrounding ground, further structural elements may lie concealed under accumulated sod. Two additional stones are believed to have originally belonged to the monument: a large boulder about six metres to the northeast, and a more substantial slab sitting on top of a field boundary some 34 metres to the west-southwest, which may once have served as the capstone. Both are of the same weathered limestone as the standing stones, lending weight to that interpretation.

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