Megalithic structure, Corcamore, Co. Limerick

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Megalithic Tombs

Megalithic structure, Corcamore, Co. Limerick

Somewhere in the townland of Corcamore, on the southern fringes of County Limerick, a megalithic structure has quietly slipped into the landscape so thoroughly that it may no longer be visible at all.

Recorded on the Ordnance Survey twenty-five-inch map as a small square-shaped feature set into a field boundary, it carries the annotation "Cloughregaun", a placename element derived from the Irish "cloch", meaning stone, which suggests the feature was recognised locally as something distinct from the ordinary field wall it appears to have become part of. That distinction matters, because megalithic structures, broadly understood as prehistoric monuments built from large stones, were often later absorbed into agricultural boundaries as farming practices slowly reorganised the land around them over centuries.

The record was compiled by Alison McQueen, Vera Rahilly, and Caimin O'Brien, and uploaded in July 2020. What it describes is a monument caught in an uncertain state. The OS map depicts it as a very small square feature incorporated into a field boundary, which might suggest a possible megalithic tomb, a structural remnant, or some other stone-built feature whose original form is now difficult to determine. By the time aerial photography from Digital Globe was examined, covering the period between 2011 and 2013, the area appeared to be occupied by an outbuilding. A Google Earth orthoimage taken on 28 June 2018 confirmed the same picture. Whether the structure survives beneath or beside that outbuilding, or whether it has been displaced entirely, the record does not say.

The monument sits within a private garden to the rear of a dwelling, which means access is not possible without the permission of whoever lives there. There is no public path or designated heritage site to visit, and no facilities. For those with a particular interest in landscape archaeology or townland placenames, the record itself, held within the national monuments database, is perhaps the most accessible version of this site. The name Cloughregaun, persisting on an Ordnance Survey map long after the structure it described had been folded into a wall or covered by a shed, is in some respects more durable than the stones it once named.

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