Megalithic History

( Archaeological History of the Parish )

Megalithic remains would seem to indicate that there was a quite dense population in the Parish from about 4,500 B.C. until about 1,500 B.C. But there seems to be little evidence of much population from about 1,500 B.C until about 500 A.D.
( "There is quite a lot to cover here; so I have divided it into sections for easy navigation. Just click on the Links below to go to a particular section." ) MJJMayo March 2002

Tombs:	Neolithic People:	Sweat Houses, Promontory Forts, Crannogs & Ring Forts:
*Court Tombs, Passage Tombs, Wedge Tombs & Portal Tombs or Dolmens.*	*The Ancient Walls, The Early Settlers, Climatic Change.*	Sweat Houses, Promontory Forts, Ring Forts & Crannogs .

1. The Tombs: There are some four types of Megalithic Tombs. These are Court, Passage, Wedge and Portal. Examples of all of these types of megalithic monuments are to be found in Kilronan Parish.
Up until very lately these, and other standing stones, were referred to "Giant's Graves" because their outline reminded people of graves.
But their size seemed to indicate that they must have been graves for very big people.

a) Court Tombs
There are about four hundred such megalithic monuments in Ireland. There are, at least, three in Kilronan Parish. These are Knockranny Court Tomb , Kilgariff Court Tomb and Corglass Court Tomb. All are in the Keadue area of the parish. These type of "Tombs" have a large circular or semi-circular uncovered court space with access off it to a covered smaller space or gallery. In fact, these were not tombs originally at all. They seemed, rather, to be community assembly places - probably for ritual or religious purposes - not unlike some of our churches. They were usually aligned to the rising sun.

Like our churches , people began to be buried or cremated in these sites.
When excavators found human remains they were called tombs. The cairns of most of these tombs have disappeared over the years and only the large stone outlines remain. The Court Tombs would seem to be the most important of all megalithic monuments because they were built to accommodate ritual worship by a living community, whereas the other monuments were mainly concerned the dead.

Court Tomb outside Keadue not far from Picnic Area a short walk through the Forest.

That there were at least three such community assembly places quite near each other in the Keadue area would point to a sizeable population here some six thousand years ago.

The most easily accessible is Knockranny Court Tomb which is only about two hundred metres on an easy path through the forest from the amenity area at the Eastern end of Lough Meelagh near Keadue.
b) Passage Tombs
There are about two hundred Passage tombs in Ireland, two of which are in Kilronan Parish. One is on top of Kilronan Mountain from where it looks down on the entire parish. The other is in Corglass about half a mile from Keadue. Both of these are damaged but each one originally had a round stone cairn and a ring of large rocks which formed an inner passage and chamber. The stones of the cairn on Kilronan Mountain were used to build a mound to facilitate a hill-top fire celebrating the election of a nationalist candidate to parliament in 1918. It was used for a similar purpose when Dr. Douglas Hyde was chosen as the first President of Ireland. The community light a beacon fire beside the mound in Midsummer Night each year when big numbers walk up the mountain for the occasion. The tomb at Corglass is known as "The Cisterchan". All of it that remains are the stones of the cairn and a single standing rock in the centre. In spite of being damaged it is still an impressive monument .These Passage Tombs date from about 3,000 B.C.
c) Wedge Tombs ( See Collage above....Image to the Right ).
These were called "Wedge Tombs" because of their wedge shape. There are about four hundred and fifty of them in Ireland.
They normally consist of a long narrow chamber which is usually wider and higher at the entrance and gets narrower towards the rear.
Usually they face to the south west. There is at least one Wedge Tomb in the parish high up on the side of Kilronan Mountain in the forest about 100 metres off the road overlooking Keadue and Ballyfarnon.
It has only recently been rediscovered. The covering stone cairn has gone but it is still a very impressive monument and looks like a real "Giant's Grave".
There is some evidence to indicate that this tomb, like many other such tombs, has been used as a grave several times over the millennia.
d) Portal Tombs or Dolmens ( See Collage above....Image in the Middle ).
There are about one hundred and seventy Portal Tombs in Ireland. They look like huge stone tables .There used to be three of them in Kilronan Parish until the spoil-heap from Rockhill coal mines covered two of them. These two were high on the side of Kilronan Mountain one mile north of Keadue church. They were called "The Leaba" and "Gordeenvemore". They must have been very impressive with their huge capstones which were balanced on three smaller standing stones.
The capstone of the Leaba measured 10 x 9 x 5.5 feet and weighed about twenty five tons. Gordenvemore capstone measured 12 x 8 x 2.5 feet and also weighed about twenty five tons and was reputed to have been chambered in a very unusual way. They were situated about one hundred yards apart. Almost certainly both of these fine Portal Tombs have been irreparably damaged .
On the mountain side above Ballyfarnon in Tullytawn townland there is what seems to be another Portal -type tomb. Of the supporting stones two are standing and one seems to have fallen. An elderly local woman known as "Baby Walsh" said she remembered climbing on to the " big heavy thick stone table that used to shake when a group a children danced or jumped on it" when she was a young girl about a hundred years ago.

Other Megalithic Monuments :
About 2,000 B.C. in what is known as The Bronze Age other types of megalithic monuments appeared. These were often lone or standing stones or "monoliths". They possibly were ritualistic or sacred sites and may have had, like the Court Tombs, much earlier associations with solar or astronomical worship.
One such stone is"The Druid's Altar" on Corrie Mountain. There is some evidence that the flagstone altar at St. Lasair's well was a pagan ritualistic monolith before it was "christianised " by Ronan and his daughter Lasair. The same may be true of the altar stone at tents on the southern end of Corrie Mountain. There are several other stones in the parish known as "Giant's Graves" but seem to have been deposited at the end of the ice age. But they also may have had some ritualistic significance.

2. Neolithic People: Most of the megalithic monuments in Ireland are found in the northwest area in the counties of Sligo and Mayo. This has led some archaeologists to believe that the earliest settlers came to Ireland from the West after sailing up the western shores of Europe.
They may have come from North Africa or Greece or perhaps were Phoenician in origin. The recently discovered Ceide Fields show that the earliest settlers, some six to seven thousand years ago, were farmers who cultivated the land in a way found in some of the Mediterranean countries at that time.

a ) The Ancient walls found under the bog were a clue to the way of life in those far off Neolithic times. Stone walls that seem to have been built in exactly the same way, but were not covered by bog, are to be found on the southern end of Kilronan Mountain in the townland of Crosshill. Perhaps these were the people who built the Court monuments and the other megalithic remains. Most of the so called history of Ireland concerned battles, but perhaps the real early history of Ireland was rooted in the land. Farming is at the very centre of modern rural life here and maybe it always has been since Ireland was first inhabited. Love of the land may be much deeper and older established in our Irish blood than we realised. ( See collage above )

b ) The Early settlers in Ireland seemed to flourish until about 1500 B.C. Why was this so and why were so many old megalithic wooden roads and implements found in bogs? Why did the people seem to go from the land? The answer seems to lie in a drastic climatic change that struck northern Europe about 1,500 years ago. For further research: Earth's Climatic History.

c ) Climatic Change It seems that there was a very violent earthquake or volcanic eruption in the north-eastern Mediterranean which threw up a great cloud of dust that blotted out the sun and caused an extremely wet climate to hit north-western Europe.
This would have seriously damaged farming and farmers.
The population dwindled drastically. This would have accounted for the lack of much archaeological evidence of an extensive population in Kilronan Parish and north-western Ireland for the next two thousand years. It would also explain why the bogs grew very quickly in those years.

It seems strange that there is relatively little tradition attached to the megalithic monuments and much more tradition surrounds the later much less important ring forts . People often used stones from the older monuments to build houses and roads.
They certainly would not treat a "fairy fort" in a similar manner.
This may have happened because there was a two thousand year gap in tradition. Very few stories would have survived from the older civilisation after a two thousand year lapse. So the eruption that destroyed the ancient Crete civilisation may also have been the reason that we allowed our two fine Portal Tombs on Kilronan Mountain to be destroyed under the coal pit spoil-heap.There was no tradition to enforce their preservation.

3. Sweat Houses, Promontory Forts, Crannogs and Ring Forts :
a ) Sweat Houses : There are over fifty sweat houses in Kilronan Parish. Most of them are in the Arigna area. Some of the best examples are in the Ballyfarnon area and there are a few in the Keadue area. Their dates vary greatly. Some seem to date back to pre-Christian times and some have been in use in the past fifty years.
Sweat houses are small stone, shale or hard-packed earthen buildings. They have a small hole in the top which acts as a chimney.
The entrance door is usually about eighteen inches high and about one foot wide. A big fire was lighted inside and the stones and other types of walls became very hot. Then the fire was raked out, the chimney sealed, some sheaves of green rushes and a pail of water were put into the house. The person who might be suffering from arthritis or other ailments crept in and sweated out his or her ailment in the intense heat. The patient then crawled out and jumped into a mountain stream which was blocked to ensure enough cold water. One of the mysteries surrounding the sweathouse was how the patient was able to get his bare buttocks through the narrow and low white-hot stone door without supplying roasted ham. These were the original saunas. Tradition has it that the Norsemen from Norway, Sweden and Denmark who raided the upper reaches of the River Shannon took the idea back with them to their Scandinavian homelands. They in turn gave the modern sauna to Northern Europe and the Western World. Maybe, we in Kilronan Parish were the ones who gave the Norse the idea and so we were the source of the modern sauna. Of course, maybe we got the idea much further back from the Greeks or Phoenicians who came to settle in Ireland over six thousand years ago. The mind boggles.

b ) Promontory Forts : Promontory forts were usually developed from natural fortifications such as a piece of high ground jutting out into s lake or a protruding elevation on a mountain which made them easily defended. Because of their natural defensive strengths they very often were developed into very large fortifications.
There are probably five such sites in Kilronan Parish. There certainly were three. There are two very good examples of lake promontory sites on Lough Meelagh. One is at the western end of the lake but this has been damaged because the Kilronan Castle people used it as a camping or picnic place and built a road to and through it.
The other site is on the northern shore just beyond St Lasair's Well. It is very well preserved. The promontory juts out about 100 metres in a kind of wineglass shape. There are a very clear earthen fortifications across the narrow entrance. It is likely that these Lough Meelagh promontory forts date from around 500 A.D. The necessary excavations have not been made to establish their age with accuracy. By far the most famous Promontory fort in the parish is that of Doon. The name itself, of course, means fortification. It is high on the side of Corrie Mountain and commands the whole Arigna Valley. Excavations were carried out by Fr. Pat Meehan in the early twentieth century. He was a highly competent amateur archaeologist. His findings led him to believe that the expansive network of ramparts, elevated pathways and huge central mound dated from between 2,500 B.C. to 1,500 B.C.
He found a cave at the base of the central mound which he thought was an escape route. This cave was probably a Souterrain. Souterrains were man made tunnels. They led into easily defended chambers and places of refuge. The entrance to this passage, it seem , has been covered off by a landslide. Tradition has it that this great Mountain Promontory Fort was the headquarters of the legendary Tuatha De Danann people. These were the same people who fought in the famous battle of Moytirra, the site of which is clearly visible from Doon. They were, it seems, a dark smallish people and given to raiding their neighbours and snatching their children and leaving sickly children in place of those snatched.
This, of course, was the basis for all the local stories about "changelings" or fairy children. There is , in fact, considerable evidence to suggest that most of the old "Fairy Myths" of Ireland had their origin in the Tuatha De Danann clan from Doon .
It was evidently the real home of Ireland's fairies and leprachauns.
Whatever the truth about the stories, the ramparts which extend over a huge area of the mountainside must have been very formidable in their day. A feature of Doon is the spectacular two hundred foot waterfall that seems to spout out of the mountain and disappear into the dark depths of the alt far below. Doon is really a place of enchantment and wonder, and is a natural spawning place for legends and fairy stories.

c ) Ringforts or "Fairyforts" : These Ringforts are very common throughout the parish . Names of townlands often indicate their presence e.g. "rath", "lios", "dun" "fort" etc. They were enclosures consisting of a space surrounded by one or more embankments and were erected to defend homes and farm animals from raiders and wild animals. Their size varies from 20 to 50 metres. Usually they are round but may be shaped otherwise. Evidence indicates that these forts date from the early Christian period from ( 500 to 1,000 A.D.). Because of the many superstitions that often accompany these ringforts they, generally, have survived land clearing by modern machines better than the more important and much earlier megalithic monuments. Because traditions surrounding them have survived better people are often much more afraid of damaging them than their older cousins which have much fewer tales and superstitions attached.

For further research go to ( The Archaeology of Ancient Ireland ) "Very Informative..."

Photograph of the Crannog out on Lough Meelagh.

d ) Crannogs : Crannogs were man-made islands in shallow lakes and were erected for defence against human and wild animal raids.
There are three crannogs in Lough Meelagh, two in Lough Skean outside Ballyfarnon and several in shallow bays in Lough Allen.
Some of these lake dwellings date from as far back as the Bronze Age and some were used as late as the eighteenth century. The crannogs in our locality were generally built on a heap of stones thrown into the lake. This was covered by great planks of oak and then more smaller stones were added. There was usually a palisade surrounding the finished enclosure. Because water is a good preserver the lake bottom around a crannog often has preserved rubbish tips which are a valuable source of information about dates of use and way of life of the inhabitants.

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