Mound, Multyfarnham, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Ritual/Ceremonial
Some sites earn their mystery through drama or decay.
This one, near Multyfarnham in County Westmeath, earns it through absence. Recorded on maps and in older inventories as a mound of some kind, it was sent out for ground survey in 2012, and the surveyor came back with nothing. Not destroyed, not relocated, simply not found.
When David McGuinness surveyed the fields in 2012, he noted that the grass was high, which can be enough to conceal low-visibility earthworks, the kind of subtle undulation in the ground that only reveals itself in certain light or after a close mow. He also spoke to the local landowner, who was unaware of any mound on the land at all, acknowledging only a nearby bowl-barrow, a type of Bronze Age burial monument characterised by a rounded earthen mound set within a shallow depression or bank. That feature is recorded separately. The mound itself remains, officially, not located.