Barrow - ditch barrow

The National Monuments Service's description

In reclaimed pasture, 135m N of the Morningstar River that marks the townland boundary with Glenlary. Barrow (LI049-232----) lies 40m to SE and barrow (LI049-230----) 35m to W. Not depicted on historic OSi maps. Possible barrow listed as ‘Mitchelstowndown West 55’ by Grogan (1989, 241). Excavated by Aoife Daly and Eoin Grogan of Discovery Programme in 1992 the results of which were summarised as follows; ‘The cemetery of Mitchelstowndown West near Knocklong contains 53 small barrows. Excavation of 4 of these [LI049-230/233----] took place over an 8-week period in July and August, 1992. Barrow 55. The ditch is U-shaped in profile having straight vertical sides and a flat base. After an apparently short period of silting, material collapsed into the ditch, sealing a layer of grassy fibres. A residue of the mound survived.
Finds include a fragment of shert debitage, a chert flake with retouch and a fragment of flint debitage. The destruction of the barrow probably coincides with the destruction of Barrow 54 [LI049-230----].
Discussion
The Mitchelstowndown West sites form a clear element of the barrow complex and the associated funerary tradition in the Morningstar Valley and probably date to the Middle to Late Bronze Age. Because there is no conclusive evidence that the barrows had a funerary function it is postulated that burial deposits had become so token that the barrows’ function had become a symbolic monument associated with burial rituals and perhaps with remembrance of the dead’ (Daly and Grogan 1993, 44). No surface remains visible on Google Earth orthoimages.

See attached Google Earth orthoimages.

Compiled by: Martin Fitzpatrick

Date of upload: 11 October 2021

References

Daly, A. and Grogan, G. 1993 Mitchelstowndown West: Ring-ditches/ring-barrows. In I. Bennett (ed.) Excavations 1992: Summary Accounts of Archaeological Excavations in Ireland, No. 131, 43-4. Wordwell, Dublin.

Grogan, E. 1989 The Early Prehistory of the Lough Gur Region: Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement patterns in North Munster, south of the River Shannon, 3 Vols. Doctoral PhD Thesis submitted to the Dept. of Archaeology, University College Dublin.