Cairn - unclassified

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated in undulating pasture, with extensive views in all directions. Monument described in the 18th/19th century by Austin Cooper as following; 'This small Crom-Liac stands in the County of Westmeath on the Lands of Ballyhattan opposite the Green of DonoreGeoghegan (from which it is seperated by a river) and lying within 20 yards of the highway at a Village called the four roads, and on the Estate of a Mr. Ahmooty. It is obscured by a ditch or bank built into it, which I have purposely left out of this View, and I apprehend is considerably filled up with clay and rubbish; the little Chamber not being more than four feet [1.2m] high; and the upper point of the covering stone only eight feet [2.4m] above ground. It stands on the brow of an eminence, and was surrounded but a circle of rude stones 24 yards in diameter a sufficient number of them are still standing to describe the circle, though many of them have been demolished in the memory of the present neighbouring Inhabitants. There appears to have been a double row of stones like an avenue from the Circle to the Cromliac, and not leading to the open or Chamber, but to the Covered or back part of it as in the Margin' (Price 1942, 122). This levelled burial mound or cairn with possible central cist is not visible today on Digital Globe aerial photography.

Compiled by Alison McQueen, Vera Rahilly and Caimin O’Brien.

Date of upload: 22 November 2019

References

Price, L. (ed.) 1942 An eighteenth-century antiquary: the sketches, notes and Diaries of Austin Cooper, 1759-1880. Dublin.