Megalithic tomb - wedge tomb, Rathaneague, Co. Cork

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Megalithic Tombs

Megalithic tomb – wedge tomb, Rathaneague, Co. Cork

On a north-facing slope near the crest of a low ridge in County Cork, a megalithic tomb sits in a state of considerable ruin, its stones scattered and its original form only partially legible in the landscape.

What survives is enough to identify it as a wedge tomb, one of the most numerous megalithic monument types in Ireland, built during the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age periods. Wedge tombs take their name from their characteristic plan: wider and higher at the entrance end, tapering toward the back, typically aligned to face the south-west and the setting sun.

The gallery here measures approximately 3.2 metres in length and is aligned on a north-east to south-west axis. A single sidestone lies prostrate to the north, and the remains of outer-walling are still traceable on the south side. A septal stone, a dividing slab used internally to segment the burial chamber, survives toward the south-west end, along with what may be the remnants of a portico, a small forecourt-like structure sometimes found at the entrance to wedge tombs. A number of other slabs have been displaced over the centuries, and the whole structure retains traces of the earthen mound that once enclosed it. The site was recorded by Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin in their systematic survey of megalithic tombs across Ireland, published in 1982, which placed this example among the Cork monuments catalogued in the fourth volume of that series. From its ridge-top position, the tomb looks out over the valleys of both the Bride and the Blackwater rivers, a siting that may have been deliberate, connecting the monument visually to the broader terrain around it.

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