What a complete oddity! Not just because of the extremely weird little tower (not an original feature) on the top, but some other features add to its air of mystery too.
For one there is the bank and ditch around its base. I have never seen this kind of feature before - perhaps it is a substitute for a kerb or perhaps it was built later for some odd reason. The argument for a kerb substitute is weakened slightly by a few large stones that lie poking through the cairn slippage at its base; could these represent a kerb.
Another striking feature is its shape. The sides are very steep and the top is flat. This almost certainly indicates that it contains a passage tomb and from its shape it could be a very southerly outlier to the Knockanarea group.
Add to that the unusually flat terrain around the tomb and you have a real mystery here.
Our first Mayo stop was ths wonderful cairn. The trees around it have not been cut back, which is a real shame. The style into the field is not easy to spot and the track has nowhere to turn around in. With the latter in mind I recomend that you park at the road and walk up to the cairn unless you wish to reverse 400m down a single track road with walls on either side.
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| K Kelly from Mayo | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
A Random Selection of Nearby Monuments
Glennafallia (Co. Waterford) | Cairn R2 (Co. Meath) | Ballyfolan (Co. Wicklow) |
Tervillin (Co. Antrim) | Seahan II (Co. Dublin) | Knocken (Co. Dublin) |