Mound, Kilmannin, Co. Mayo

Co. Mayo |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Mound, Kilmannin, Co. Mayo

In the hilly pasture outside Kilmannin in County Mayo, a low circular mound sits on a gravel ridge, sod-covered and easy to overlook.

It measures roughly five and a half metres north to south and five metres east to west, rising only half a metre at its highest point on the eastern side. The top is flat, perhaps two to two and a half metres across, with what appears to be a faint raised lip along the western edge. Whether that lip is a deliberate feature or simply a consequence of how the earthen material has settled over time is unclear, and the composition of the mound beneath its grassy surface has not been determined.

The ridge on which it sits is an esker, one of the long, winding ridges of gravel and sand deposited by meltwater streams running beneath glaciers during the last Ice Age. Eskers were significant features in the Irish landscape long after the ice retreated; they offered dry, elevated ground in a countryside that was often waterlogged, and they frequently appear in association with early roads, boundaries, and burial sites. This particular esker overlooks a natural basin of boggy ground to the west, and about fifty metres to the south-east the ground dips into a water-filled depression. The steep western slopes of the ridge are covered in hazel scrub. The views from the mound are not extensive, which is itself a quiet oddity; many prehistoric mounds were positioned to command wide sightlines, and the relatively enclosed setting here sets this one apart.

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Pete F
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