Megalithic tomb - wedge tomb, An Goirtín Fliuch, Co. Cork

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Megalithic Tombs

Megalithic tomb – wedge tomb, An Goirtín Fliuch, Co. Cork

On a south-westerly slope of Mweelin Mountain in County Cork, a small wedge tomb overlooks the quiet valley of the Bunsheelin River.

It is not a grand monument by any measure. The chamber, just 1.3 metres long and about a metre wide, is what remains of a megalithic burial tradition that spread across Ireland during the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, roughly four to five thousand years ago. Wedge tombs, the most numerous of Ireland's megalithic tomb types, typically take their name from a plan shape that widens and rises at the entrance end, tapering toward the back, and this example follows that pattern, its sidestones decreasing in height as they run from south-west to north-east.

What survives at An Goirtín Fliuch, a placename that translates loosely as the wet little field, is skeletal but legible. A single sidestone to the north-west and another to the south-east define the chamber walls, with a backstone set into the north-east end. A roofstone, presumably once resting across the top of the structure, now lies displaced against the north-east corner. Two further prostrate slabs sit to the south-east, and two more to the west, their original positions uncertain. The chamber area shows signs of having been dug out at some point, a fate common to small monuments like this, whether by antiquarian curiosity, agricultural practicality, or something less deliberate. Along the north-west side there are faint traces of what may once have been a covering mound, and some field clearance material has accumulated along the south-east side, the residue of generations of farmers working the land around it.

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