Barrow - bowl-barrow

The National Monuments Service's description

A barrow-cemetery consisting of seven barrows (WM007-014----; WM007-016----; WM007-017----; WM007-018----; WM007-015----; WM007-015001-). Monument surveyed in 2015 and described by McGuinness (2015, 60) as following: ‘This monument, listed on NMS website as an unclassified-barrow. It appears to be the mound referred to in ASI account of 14/5/81, which specifies that it had been removed in recent years, adding that ‘this however probably related to quarrying (there is a quarry hole nearby) and is not thought therefore to have been an antiquity’ [SMR file]. Given its hilltop location in immediate vicinity of a barrow cemetery, this site must be regarded as a possible mound-barrow or, perhaps more likely, a fifth bowl barrow with shallow ditch. This hilltop cemetery of six barrows overlooks Lough Lene, which lies 0.5km to S. Although not visible, the important early medieval monastery of Fore lies on lower ground only 1.2km to ENE, at foot of group of hills on N side of Lough Lene, of which the present site is on the westernmost hill. On a sketch-map of Fore and other important pre-Norman locations around Lough Lene prepared for the Ordnance Survey Letters in 1837, John O’Donovan marked three barrows (‘na móitínídhe’) on this hill (Herity (ed.) 2011, Fig. 6), which is labelled ‘Cnoc na Caillíghe’ like the analogously named passage-tomb cemetery at Loughcrew (‘Sliabh na Caillighe’) and other sites of hilltop burial cairns linked to the Cailleach Bheara in folklore. On a prominent hilltop across W end of Lough Lene in Ballany, c. 2.2km to SSW of the barrows, is Ráth an Dúin or Dún Doirbhgheis (‘Turgesius’s Fort’), a remarkable monument (WM007-035----) described by John O’Donovan of the Ordnance Survey in 1837 as consisting of ‘one ring of earth which, enclosing the whole apex of the hill and being adapted to its outline (contour) is nearly of an oval shape, being about 160 feet in breadth and 210 in length. It extends east and west’; although traditionally linked with the Viking Turgesius, O’Donovan argued that this naturally and artificially fortified hill was a seat of Irish kings prior to the time of Turgesius, based on similarities with Dún na Sgiath on Lough Ennell (Herity (ed.) 2011, 172-)’.

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien based on details provided by David McGuinness.

Date of upload: 10 February 2016

References

ASIAP - Archaeological Survey of Ireland Aerial Photographs (c. 1996 - c. 2010).

McGuinness, D. 2015 The prehistoric burial mounds and related monument of County Westmeath. Part III - Monuments in Northern and Eastern Westmeath (Baronies of Delvin and Fore, and Parts of Baronies of Farbill, Fartullagh, Moygoish, and Moyashel & Magheradernon). Unpublished survey funded by Westmeath County Council in association with Westmeath Archaeological and Historical Society.

Herity, M. (ed.) 2011 Ordnance Survey Letters Longford and Westmeath. Dublin. Four Masters Press.