Megalithic tomb - wedge tomb, Ballynahown, Co. Clare
Co. Clare |
Megalithic Tombs
A field wall runs directly across the low mound, bisecting a prehistoric tomb that was already in poor shape long before anyone thought to record it properly.
This wedge tomb, one of four in the area collectively known as the Ballynahown group in County Clare, sits in a slight depression on a level karstic limestone plateau, with views of the Atlantic stretching from south-southwest to northwest. That combination, a burial monument tucked into a hollow on an exposed karst plain, embedded within what appears to be a much larger and multi-period field system, gives the site an odd, layered quality: ancient stonework folded into ancient landscape management, then cut through again by a later field wall as if it were simply another obstacle to route around.
A wedge tomb is a megalithic burial type found across Ireland, typically dating to the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age, characterised by a stone-built chamber that is wider and higher at one end, tapering toward the rear, and usually orientated to the west or southwest. This example, aligned toward the south-southwest, retains a single large western sidestone running the full estimated length of the chamber, about 3.6 metres, with traces of dressing visible along its upper edge, suggesting deliberate shaping rather than raw fieldstone. The eastern side has largely collapsed or been lost, with only a possible fragment of a sidestone base surviving. The antiquarian T.J. Westropp, writing in 1907, noted a "giant's grave in a walled hollow" with "rows of large stones, and entrance" somewhere in the vicinity, though it remains uncertain whether he was describing this tomb or another one roughly 500 metres to the northeast, which sits in an oval hollow and is enclosed by a later drystone wall. The Ballynahown group was documented more systematically by Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin in their 1961 Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, though even that record contains errors in the stated orientations.
By the time of a field inspection in 1998, vegetation had obscured the low earthen mound entirely, along with several of the smaller stones that had helped define the front of the chamber. What remains visible, the long western sidestone, scattered fragments of outer walling, and a small irregular upright to the west, is enough to suggest a once more complete structure, now gradually disappearing into the grass and scrub of the plateau. A second wedge tomb from the same group lies approximately 91 metres to the north.