As you may have noticed on my home page there is currently some fuss about the old right of way to Kiltiernan portal tomb. The route I (and most other people) have always taken is not the recorded right of way, so this week I decided to check out the 'proper' route. Sadly it is so under-used that part of it is impassable. We do not need to worry too much though, because there are four known routes that people have used to access the tomb and I have it on good authority that one of these will be kept open as a public right of way.

While there I took a little time to look at why the tomb was built where it is: on the side of a low hill and hidden away. It faces westward, which is the opposite of most portal tombs, towards Ballyedmonduff and Two Rocks Mountain. After a bit of looking I stepped back from tomb and looked over the top of the capstone to the south and saw a great site: the peak of The Little Sugar Loaf Mountain just poking up through the gap in the skyline made by The Scalp pass! This surely must be why this location was chosen.

I had a host of great Burren wedge tombs lined up for today as well as a few other little treats. Unfortunately I only managed a few of the treats and failed to get to the wedge tombs I had wanted to see. This was due to the weather in Clare being a lot more unpredictable than the weather forecast said it was going to be.

When I first arrived in County Clare everything seemed ok, but as I approached the Burren the drizzle started. All the sites I wanted to get to were far away from the roads and the very exposed Burren craglands are not a place to get caught in a downpour, so I let discretion become the better part and headed home.

I was supposed to head for The Burren again today, but when I woke up I didn't really feel like a long drive in the rain, even if the Clare forecast was promising. Instead I decided to check out a local standing stone I only heard about a couple of weeks ago.

Tomorrow I have a full day of Meath revisits planned with a couple of like-minded stone lovers. We start the day on Tara at sunrise to (hopefully) witness the sun lighting up the back of the chamber in the Mound of the Hostages.

I don't usually go in for visiting big sites at these special occasions, but I decided it would be good to go to Tara before the lights from the new motorway kill the ambience and effect of any sunrises. Due to me getting lost while trying to collect someone on the way we arrived late and in the rain. This actually worked to our advantage, because the sun finally broke through and gave us the show we'd come to see.