Megalithic tomb - wedge tomb, Doire Mhic Coirnín, Co. Cork

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Megalithic Tombs

Megalithic tomb – wedge tomb, Doire Mhic Coirnín, Co. Cork

Out on the open moorland of Doire Mhic Coirnín, on a north-facing slope above a tributary of the Sruhaunphadeen Stream in County Cork, a low earthen mound barely seven metres across conceals what remains of a prehistoric wedge tomb.

Wedge tombs are among the most numerous megalithic monument types in Ireland, gallery graves whose internal space narrows and lowers from one end to the other, typically oriented with the wider, taller entrance facing westward. This one follows that pattern precisely, tapering from a width of 1.1 metres at the west end down to 1 metre at the east, and decreasing in height along the same axis.

The tomb was recorded and catalogued by Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin in their 1982 survey of megalithic tombs across Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary. Their account describes a partly buried gallery approximately two metres long, formed by three sidestones along the north wall and two along the south, with an inset backstone closing the east end. The roofstone, which once would have capped the entire chamber, survives but has broken into two pieces. An inclined stone at the western end may be a septal stone, a slab used internally to divide or partially screen the burial space, though this identification is given with some caution. One outer-wall stone is visible at the east end of the north side, hinting at a more elaborate original fabric now largely swallowed by the mound and moorland soil.

The setting itself is worth noting. Moorland sites like this one tend to preserve megalithic remains precisely because the land was never intensively ploughed or developed, leaving the monument partly intact even as the mound has settled around it over millennia. The gallery's ESE-WNW alignment, and the gradual reduction in height toward the east, are characteristic features that place this firmly within the wedge tomb tradition found across the south-west of Ireland.

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