Monumental structure, Derryloughan More, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ritual/Ceremonial
In the townland of Derryloughan More, in County Mayo, something large enough to be classified as a monumental structure sits in the landscape, recorded but not yet fully described.
The designation itself is telling: Irish archaeological records use the category of monumental structure as a broad holding term for substantial built remains that resist easy classification, the kind of site that has clearly demanded effort and material to construct but whose precise function or period has not yet been pinned down with confidence.
Derryloughan More is a rural townland in Mayo, a county whose boglands and lake margins have preserved an extraordinary range of prehistoric and early medieval remains, from megalithic tombs and ring forts to crannogs, which are artificial or semi-artificial island dwellings built in lakes and used from the Bronze Age well into the medieval period. The fact that this particular site carries a formal monument record places it within a long tradition of surveying and cataloguing such features across Ireland, a process that began in earnest in the nineteenth century and continues today. Beyond its location and its classification, the details of this structure, its dimensions, its age, its likely builders and purpose, remain to be fully documented and made available.