Megalithic tomb - wedge tomb, Clorhane, Co. Limerick

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Megalithic Tombs

Megalithic tomb – wedge tomb, Clorhane, Co. Limerick

A roofstone more than two metres across sits in a tilted, precarious lean above what remains of a prehistoric burial chamber in the quiet farmland north of Adare.

It has been in roughly that position for a very long time. The monument at Clorhane is a wedge tomb, a type of megalithic structure built during the later Neolithic and into the early Bronze Age, characterised by a rectangular or trapezoidal stone chamber that is typically wider and higher at the western end and tapers toward the east. Most were used for communal burial and are found widely across the west and south of Ireland. This one, however, is not in the condition its builders left it. It is heavily overgrown, partially collapsed, and sits without ceremony in rich grassland that gives little outward sign of its age.

The tomb was documented in detail by Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin as part of their monumental Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, published in 1982 by the Stationery Office in Dublin, covering Counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary. Their survey, along with the Megalithic Survey of Ireland, recorded the structure as lying approximately three kilometres north of Adare, in the broad basin of the River Maigue. All the surviving stones are coarse, weathered limestone slabs. Two orthostats, upright stones forming the walls of the chamber, remain on the southern side, one leaning outward, one still erect. The northern sidestone has fallen. The single outer-wall stone, which would have formed part of a second, enclosing wall around the chamber, still stands. No trace of any surrounding mound survives. The roofstone, measuring 2.1 metres by 1.9 metres and half a metre thick, rests at a tilt across the remaining uprights, with two further displaced stones at the eastern end in varying states of collapse.

The setting is low-lying and agricultural, which makes the monument easy to overlook and also means access requires some local knowledge. The Megalithic Survey notes that the outlook from the site is restricted, though the Slievebernagh Mountains are visible toward the north-east and the north Kerry hills appear to the south-west on a clear day. The overgrowth noted in the survey records is unlikely to have improved with time, so visitors should expect to work a little to read the stones clearly. The two remaining erect orthostats on the southern side and the outer-wall stone give the clearest sense of the original structure's shape, while the tilted roofstone offers a reasonable impression of how the chamber would once have been enclosed.

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