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Aillemore : Court Tomb

CountyMayo
Grid RefL 762 738
GPSL 76162 73803 (5m)
Longitude9° 52' 30.95" W
Latitude53° 41' 57.15" N
Nearest TownClifden (25.4 Km)
OS Sheet37
UTM zone29U
UTM x442214.64851406
UTM y5950412.0744475
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Visit Notes

Sunday, 14th January 2007

Another of Ireland's unsung sites. Apart from the few complete court tombs that are still buried in peat, the gallery here is in such an amazing state of preservation. Piled up against the outside of the orthostats that define the gallery there are huge slabs that raise the wall height to over 2m. This huge corbelling would have been present in the vast majority of court tombs. Seeing this effect allows you to realise that other court tomb that seem very low were once much higher.

There is a lot of the cairn still in place, too. Some of this has been moved about and the court stones are possibly hidden beneath this. There is an odd standing stone to the northeast of the entrance. I don't know if this is an original feature: it could be a solitary court stone or it could be a marker stone, because a line from the entrance to the gallery through this stone would continue on to Croagh Patrick.

The gallery points roughly east towards the Sheeffry Hills. To the southeast the Mweel Rea Mountains dominate the view. As the monument is built near to the top of a southeasterly facing slope there are no views to the north or west.

The gallery is divided in to two chambers by jambs and a low sill stone. The entrance has a large jamb on the lefthand side and some drystone walling on the right. The latter is not original and was added when the tomb was used previously as a cowshed (A. Weir).

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All Sites Visited On 14th January 2007    « Previous Site    Next Site »

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Random Gazetteer

A Random Selection of Nearby Monuments

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1.7 Km (NNW) there is a Standing Stone at Cloonlaur known as Killeen.
3.4 Km (ENE) there is a Wedge Tomb at Srahwee.
2.7 Km (NW) there is a Stone Pair at Cloonlaur.



A Selection of Other Court Tombs

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