Cairn - wayside cairn

The National Monuments Service's description

On E-facing slope of a ridge in grassland, 410m SW of Boyounagh graveyard (GA006-030001-). Named in OS Letters (O'Flanagan 1927, Vol. 1, 81) as 'Leacht Mhaire Ni Thuathail' and described as 'a large ash tree with a carn of stones around its base'. It consists of a small, partially degraded, subrectangular flat-topped mound of earth and stone (N-S 3m, E-W 1.6m, H 1.2m max.). Local tradition states that it was dedicated to a woman who, when being taken to the above graveyard for burial, fell from the shoulders of her pall-bearers at this spot. As a result, the mound was constructed as 'it is a custom in the country to raise a pile of stones on every spot where a corpse was laid down' (ibid.). The ash tree was afterwards planted in her memory by a friend. (Kinght c. 1975, 2-3)

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. II - North Galway'. Compiled by Olive Alcock, Kathy de hÓra and Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1999).

Date of upload: 05 August 2010