Barrow (Ring Barrow), Dromskarragh More, Co. Cork

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Barrow (Ring Barrow), Dromskarragh More, Co. Cork

What catches the attention at Dromskarragh More is not any single dramatic feature but rather the density of prehistoric activity concentrated in one quiet corner of north Cork pastureland.

Within a relatively small area, at least three separate burial monuments sit in close proximity, each representing a different approach to the ancient problem of marking the dead. This ring barrow, almost entirely levelled by centuries of agricultural use, is the least conspicuous of the group, yet it retains enough of its original form to be read in the landscape.

A ring barrow is a low burial mound, typically Bronze Age in origin, defined by a surrounding ditch, known as a fosse, and an external earthen bank. Here the circular area measures roughly 6.9 metres north to south and 6.5 metres east to west, enclosed by a fosse whose bank still stands to around 0.65 metres on the interior face and 0.75 metres on the exterior. It sits on a south-facing slope, positioned approximately 40 metres east of a cairn, a mound built from loose stones rather than earth, and around 110 metres south of a second ring barrow. The detail that lifts this particular monument above the merely routine is a single stone, roughly 0.4 metres long and 0.15 metres wide, set radially into the northern arc of the bank. Whether it served a structural purpose, a symbolic one, or is simply the survivor of a more elaborate arrangement, the notes do not say. Its presence, though, suggests the monument was more carefully constructed than its current flattened condition might imply.

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