Megalithic tomb - wedge tomb, Kiltennan, Co. Clare

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Megalithic Tombs

Megalithic tomb – wedge tomb, Kiltennan, Co. Clare

What looks, at first glance, like a low grassy hump in a rough Clare pasture turns out, on closer inspection, to be a carefully engineered burial monument several thousand years old.

The wedge tomb at Kiltennan sits embedded within a circular mound measuring roughly six metres across and less than a metre in height, its stones so thoroughly settled into the earth that the structure reads more as landscape than architecture. That quality of near-invisibility is part of what makes it worth attention.

Wedge tombs are the most numerous megalithic tomb type in Ireland, built during the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, generally between about 2500 and 2000 BC. The name refers to their characteristic shape: the burial gallery is wider and higher at one end than the other, tapering as it runs. At Kiltennan, the tomb is oriented east to west, lined by two upright sidestones each 1.6 metres long, set 0.9 metres apart at the eastern end and narrowing to 0.55 metres at the west. The eastern entrance is loosely closed by a smaller upright slab, while two further slabs block the western end. The floor of the chamber sits lower than the surrounding mound surface, giving the interior a slightly sunken quality. Outside the tomb itself, two arcs of upright stones curve around the mound, following its outline. The western arc stretches 3.7 metres and contains five stones; the eastern arc runs 2.5 metres with at least three stones visible. These may represent the remnants of a kerb or outer retaining wall, a feature found at other wedge tombs where the mound was given a more formal boundary. In both arcs, the largest stone sits to the north, directly east and west of the tomb chamber. A further upright slab is positioned to the south of the southern sidestone, its precise function unclear.

The monument does not exist in isolation. It sits near the top of a gentle north-facing slope within what appears to be a large field system incorporating remains from multiple periods, suggesting this corner of County Clare has been worked and reused across a very long stretch of time. A field bank of earth and stone now overlies the eastern part of the mound, one layer of human activity quietly pressing down upon another.

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