I started the day with a list of Wicklow bullauns and rock art panels. The trek to the first site took me into the valley to the northeast of Lough Dan, along a popular walk to the Lough. What a beautiful place! I could certainly live there. The walk back to the top of the valley was eased greatly when I stopped to watch two herds of deer, each accompanied by an antlered stag grazing in the valley below. It's too late in the year for the rutt, but I'll be back here next autumn to see if I can witness the spectacle. I also spotted what I think are the remains an unrecorded kerbed cairn in the valley bottom.
From there I headed to the other side of Lough Dan to track down two panels and a bullaun stone. I only managed to find one of the panels. I didn't find the bullaun, because I entered the wrong grid ref into my GPS. Silly!
Then it was south to Drummin townland to look for some other rock art panels and bullauns. Again I managed to find one cup-marked stone.
After that I met up with Ken Williams to visit Drummin (County Wicklow) to take some side-lit shots to try and hilight the very worn markings. The motifs have faded even more since my last visit, but the side flash worked - as always it worked better for Ken than it did for me!
I left Ken taking pictures of that stone (complete with posing cat) and wandered into the next field, where I located a cup-marked stone that actually proved to be a proper rock art panel, because two of the cups have a single ring around them.
Despite not finding everything, it was a great day. I really do love that part of the country and feel lucky that it's so close to home.
I had planned to go to Clare today. However, when I woke up I didn't feel like getting up, so I didn't. When I eventually did so I decided to join Ken again in Carlow. I arrived about lunch time and started asking around for information about one rock art panel, but even the oldest farmer in the townland couldn't help me. I then tried to ring Ken to see where he was, but was somewhat hindered due to the fact that I'd left my mobile phone at home!
I then went to Spa Hill to see Peter Rose, who is the gardian of a very beautiful carved stone. I managed to take some better pictures of this and he showed me 3 other panels on his land. These are not in the same league as the 'proper' Spa Hill stone, but they are tempting pointers to the volume of rock art in the area. Peter is always on the look out for new panels, so don't think it will be too long before more come to light. As I couldn't contact Ken I decided to head home. When I rang to tell him why I hadn't been in contact he told me that he'd been to see one panel that is supposed to be in the National Museum, but is still in situ. I hope to go and see it next Saturday.
A recent talk by Chris Corlett unleashed the presence of a lot of rock art in Carlow and Wicklow. Sadly, the exact locations of the many new stones was not given, so the hunt begins!
These short days don't really help, especially when you don't start out until after lunch. This severely limited the amount of tracking down that could be done. Thinking that I might not find any of the new stone I first went to Rathgeran Lower (County Carlow). I am so happy that I did, because the lighting was absolutely perfect!
One of the stones on the list is also in Rathgeran townland, but it's a big townland. All that was known is that it is in a field wall. I spent a good hour looking around the walls close to the above stone without luck. Eventually, after much door knocking, I found out which farm it is on. Then I managed to find the farm and the farmer was very, very helpful. I took some good pictures using the Ken Willaims side-flash method and then the batteries in both my flashes ran out. Great planning! Soon afterwards, Ken himself turned up and took some even better ones.
While Ken was taking his shots the farmer drove me to a nearby field to show me another stone he'd uncovered a few months ago. This is unlike the other rock art in the area and is a valuable addition to the stuff found within sight of Mount Leinster.
The day started out with a list of bullaun stones in Donegal and the intention of visiting them and then heading for Inishowen and seeing some rock art. The bullaun-stone-visiting part of the day didn't go exactly to plan. In fact, the only bullaun stone I saw wasn't actually on the list!
I started off with one of the few portal tombs I haven't visited yet and then headed north for Inishowen. After finding some very worn rock art and some not-so-very worn rock art, I got into conversation with a man, Desi McCillion, on the shores of Lough Fada. It turns out that he was a local history buff, so the conversation carried on for some time. He didn't know of the one stone I had located, so I showed him where that is and he told me of some nice sites, including a Christianised bullaun stone. This went straight on my list. Sadly, he also informed me that one of the people I was trying to track down, Conell Byrne, had passed away this year. Now, I never knew him, but everywhere I went in the eare looking for information his name drew instant recognition. He was a very well respected man in these parts. He had a wealth of local history knowledge, but sadly much of that is lost, because it was mainly kept in his head. Although not well-known outside of Inishowen, I feel I must mention his passing and what a loss it is to us all.
Anyway, after my conversation with Desi I set off to see a few sites from my original list and a few sites that he had told me about. I finally arrived on Doagh Isle in the pouring rain. It was lashing down. In a break in the weather I headed into the fields with some GPS coords provided by Ken Williams. The panels were still on display and they are still beautiful! There is masses of rock art on Doagh Isle and a lot of it is unique to the area. I then found two other panels nearby, but these are very worn. Then the rain started up again and I got soaked desperately trying to find one beautiful panel that I had an illustration of, but all I got is wet ... very wet!
All-in-all it was a good day. Some tombs, a stone circle, some high crosses, a bullaun stone and several rock art panels. Unfortunately, the weather was so bad and the light so weird that not many of the photos of the worn rock art panels turned out. I will post them and I'll mark where the motifs are, but with some of them you'll just have to take my word for it ... or, even better, go out and see them for yourself.
The plan was to visit all the standing stones marked in north Wexford. The result was visiting the sites of a lot of standing stones in north Wexford. So many of them have disappeared. All I found was one rather sadly fallen roadside stone. Feeling somewhat deflated by this I headed southeast to look for a bullaun stone. I found that, but it isn't exactly going to set the megalithic world on fire.
On a much better note, the proofing of Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Waterford is completed and it will soon be going to the printers. We are anticipating a late November release.
It's been a long time since I added any hi-res images to megalithomania, so I think I will endevour to do some over the coming weeks. I will also replace some of the terrible ones that I do have available! Unfortunately I don't have an easy mechanism in place to do upload these at the moment (which is why I haven't added any for a long time) so I will probably code that first (which is why it will happen over the coming weeks.)
The day started off with lots of fog, so I didn't hold out much hope for my search for rock art in County Louth. Luckily, as soon as I'd cleared Dublin the fog cleared, too. Since the M1 tore its way through Meath and Louth I haven't driven around the back roads much, so it was quite a pleasure to get out and about properly.
I had intended to head right up as far as Carlingford, but I was frankly too tired after rooting out the three rock art panels I did manage to find. One panel eluded me, so I presume that the Drumcah panel has become overgrown. On the way back I stopped off at Rathiddy standing stone, which poeticaly had a crow standing on its top as I approached.
My trip started with a visit to check out the amazing looking chambered cairn at Fieldstown, but both of the cairns there are now gorse covered. Again, an important prehistoric site has been allowed to become hidden and the roots of the gorse bushes can only be doing harm. This monument should be cleared and should be made a National Monument.
I really do need to start seeing sites in Antrim. That is, after all, the county my next book will be covering. The problem today was that I didn't want to be home late, so I settled for a list of sites in the south of the county, between the cities of Belfast and Antrim to be precise. As usual it was a day of mixed fortunes. A large number of sites were no longer there or were ruined beyond recognition, but one in particular, Browndod court tomb, was superb and it alone made the trip worthwhile.
I made the effort to go back to Ballylumford to take some pictures (after I deleted the photos from my cammera that I took on my first visit) and also popped in to see one of the saddest bullaun stones I have ever seen.
If things go to plan I should have the proof of Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Waterford back from the publishers this week. We are aiming for a late November release, so put it on your Christmas lists!
Last week I went on holiday to northwest Spain, to Galicia. We stayed in Santiago de Compostilla, but spent most of our days travelling about to see things prehistoric. In the evenings we went around the churches of Santiago. On our journeys we went to three 'dolmens', some rock art, two castros (Iron Age/Neolithic walled settlemets) and some Romanesque churches. I will add an entry to my Beyong Our Shores section as soon as I have time to do so.
This week I decided to do something rather silly - drive around the Ring of Kerry in a day. Not really a problem to do if you start from Kenmare, but setting off from Dublin is a different matter. That's a total round trip of 800km!
The weather started out wonderful, but it did start to rain at the last site I was at. I spent a good three hours wondering around Derrynablaha townland in an attempt to find more rock art panels - I managed to find 5 panels I hadn't been to before, but failed to find two that Ken Williams had previously found.
After Derrynablaha I set off to loop around the Ring of Kerry. On the way I visited a couple of stone rows, a cashel, some more rock art and a beautiful wedge tomb.
Today was a nasty day. The morning was ok, I suppose, but by lunchtime it was raining. It was that kind os rain that white's-out everything around you - which isn't the best situation to be in when driving through the Wicklow Gap. At times I couldn't see the sides of the road!
I went armed with a list of possible locations of bulllaun stones. There were 18 entries on the list and I had very mixed success. Several of the stones have simple gone - either removed or buried. Many others were in overgrown graveyards with no hope of being located. To save others the trouble of looking for these, I will list the ones that I couldn't find:
Laragh East, Bahana, Raheen, Kilmacoo, Ticlash, two of the Lickeen stones and Castletimon.
I did manage to see two out of four alledged stones in Lickeen townland. I was shown these by Tom, who often visits megalithomania.com and had a good knowledge of sites nationwide. Together we looked for a thrid stone nearby and I checked out the fourth on my own a little later. None of these could be located. It was great to stand and chat with Tom. It's always a pleasure to meet someone genuinely interested in the stones. Thanks for the chat, Tom.
There were several other bullaun stones that seem to be near to farmhouses that I didn't check out, because there was noone in when I called. I'll try to get back to these as soon as I can.
Today I arranged to meet Anthony Weir of Irish Megaliths to see some sites in County Down. On the way I stopped at Ballynoe (County Down) to check out the damage to the sunken track that leads to the site. It isn't really all that bad, but it does look terrible. New fencing has been erected down the right-hand side, and to do this some of the old thorn hedging was removed. Hopefully, this will not be damaged any more and it will grow back over time.
With Anthony's help I went to see two pieces of rock art and tried to get to Castlemahon stone circle. The latter proved tricky as we'd left the map in the car and had remembered its location incorrectly relatie to the radio mast.
On the way home I stopped at a couple of sites and tried to find the cist at Drumena, but failed. I did find the ruins of the cairn marked on the OS map, but this was not the cist. I was so disappointed that I forgot to take any pictures of what I did find.
