Neolithic Ireland

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Neolithic Megaliths

One of the most important legacies left by the Neolithic farmers was their megaliths, or large earthen constructions, used primarily as burial places. The emphasis placed on these megaliths in literature is mainly due to the fact that they are the only things to have survived largely intact from the Neolithic era. They can thus give us the best clues to Neolithic life, and while they do perhaps over-emphasise the role of burying the dead in Neolithic society, it was also true that burials seemed to have played an important part in Neolithic society. Not only do the megaliths provide many artefacts such as burial objects, but by digging into their constituent material scientists can learn about the climate and vegetation that existed at the time they were built.

Megaliths are not unique to Ireland - they can be found in a broad sweep of western Europe which includes Spain, Portugal, western France, Denmark, Ireland and parts of Wales and Scotland. Nevertheless, with over 1500 recorded megalithic tombs still in existence in Ireland, it is an important aspect of Irish history. The later peoples of Ireland would wonder at these huge enigmatic constructions and frequently attributed them to giants, giving rise to the proliferation of giants in Irish mythology.

The construction of megaliths did not commence with the first Neolithic settlers. Rather, their construction began several centuries after the first arrivals, around 3500BC. They are heavily concentrated in the north of Ireland and can be broken down into three clear types which may be evidence of primitive religious or political groupings (although that term must be used very loosely).



Court tombs are found almost exclusively in the northern half of Ireland: in Ulster and northern Connaught and probably represent the oldest Neolithic constructions. Built mainly in upland areas, a Court tomb basically consisted of a segmented stone chamber covered by an earthen mound, with an entrance courtyard that almost invariably faces east. Today, the earthen mound is usually long eroded away leaving the internal stones of the tomb exposed. While the term 'tomb' is used, it must be said that there is evidence that these structures may possibly have served as temples, rather than simply tombs, and may have been used frequently. Rarely has any intact pottery been found in a court tomb. The best examples of court tombs are Annaghmare, in county Armagh, Magheraghanrush, county Sligo and Tullyskeherny, county Leitrim. There is a large concentration of court tombs in a small area of north county Mayo with other concentrations in counties Sligo, Leitrim, Tyrone and Antrim. The picture is of the court tomb at Deerpark, county Sligo




Portal tombs, or dolmens, are found mainly in the northern half of Ireland, but also in the Wicklow - Wexford - Waterford area and around Galway Bay. Probably originating in the east Tyrone area, they may have developed from court tombs. They consist of three or more vertical stones on top of which is perched one or two huge capstones. The capstones always lean down towards one side, leaving a large opening at the high end. Many have collapsed in the intervening millenia, but they remain one of the most striking forms of megalith. Originally, human remains would have been interred inside the tomb and the entrance sealed with smaller stones, most of which have disappeared in the time since.  The best examples are to be found in the Carlingford Lough area of counties Down and Louth. The photograph above shows the portal tomb at Glenroan, county Tyrone

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The Basic Design of a Neolithic Period Tomb

All the tombs and other later constructions such as stone circles in this entry can be described as 'Megalithic' (Greek: 'Mega' - big, 'Lithos' - stone). The basic tomb has three features:

Chamber - this is a stone-lined space in which the corpse would have been laid. The body was sometimes cremated and the ashes placed in a stone basin or in an earthenware pot. Other times, the body was buried. There seems to be no preference between burial and cremation: often both methods were used in the same tomb. Larger chambers can hold 20 people standing, others are no bigger than a box 1m2.

Doorway - consists of two upright flat stones facing each other and a lintel stone above. These stones seem to have been symbolically important, as they were always present, even though the other parts of the tomb varied considerably over the centuries.

Mound - in most tomb designs, the whole structure was covered in a mound of clay and stones, so that all that was visible from the outside was a mound with a stone doorway.

There were four basic types of tomb that were used at different times in varying parts of Ireland. Some of these are also found in other parts of Europe, such as Great Britain and Brittany.

Court Tombs

The earliest type of stone tomb found in Ireland is the court tomb, built mainly between 4000 and 3500 BC. There are more than 400 found almost entirely in the northern half of the country, being particularly common around Sligo.

The tomb itself consists of a number of square or rectangular chambers in a line, each made from flat stones standing upright (orthostats) and other flat stones across the top. A mound is then constructed over the whole tomb, usually about 25m long and about 15m wide. The line of the tomb is from west to east and the doorway into the tomb faces east. The court tomb has a flat semi-circular area in front of the doorway known as a 'court'. The court is paved with stone and surrounded by standing stones. Presumably the court was used for rituals during the funeral.

Most court tombs in existence have been damaged over the years so that the mound has disappeared and the roof stones removed, leaving only the side stones. A good example of a court tomb, which has been partially reconstructed, can be seen at Creevykeel, County Sligo.

Portal Tombs or Dolmens

Portal tombs appear to have developed from court tombs. They are so-called because of the prominence of the doorway. As well as other vertical stones, they have two very large stones forming the doorway and an enormous stone, which not only covers the doorway but also covers the whole tomb. This 'capstone' can be anything from 20 to 90 tonnes in weight and slopes with its highest point at the doorway. Portal tombs are not and were never covered in a mound but stand with the stones exposed.

There are about 180 portal tombs, usually built on low-lying ground, scattered around Ireland, mainly in Ulster but with small concentrations in South Dublin and Waterford.

A very good example of a portal tomb is the Proleek Dolmen. Situated in the Cooley peninsula to the northeast of Dundalk, it is well sign-posted and easily reached through the grounds of Ballymascanlon Hotel. This dolmen has a capstone estimated at 30 tonnes in weight.

Passage Tombs

Passage tombs or passage graves were built in the period from 3500 to 3000 BC. There are about 240. Unlike other tombs which are isolated, passage tombs tend to be built in 'cemeteries', that is, collections of a large number of such tombs. The most significant of these cemeteries are in County Meath at Brú na Bóinne and Loughcrew, and in Sligo at Carrowkeel and Creevykeel.

Passage tombs are a development of court tombs: the chamber is large and often cross-shaped, with a narrow stone-lined passage leading to it. The mound is circular and can be enormous. The biggest of these is more than 80m in diameter. Newgrange at Brú na Bóinne in County Meath is the best example of a passage tomb and is open to the public. Excavations around Newgrange show that originally the front of the mound was faced with white stones. All the way around the base of the mound was a ring of large stones covered in engravings. There are also engravings inside the passage and chamber. However, these are the only Neolithic tombs to show any sort of engravings. The patterns are abstract ones - spirals, diamonds and zigzags, although it has been speculated that some of them represent the phases of the moon.

While the court tombs always faced east, the passages of the passage tombs point in many different directions. Many were built to align with the sun so that the sun's rays could shine down the passage on a significant date: for example, passages facing southeast catch the rays at sunrise on the winter solstice, as happens in Newgrange. Passages facing west were aligned with the setting sun at the equinox. Some of the bigger mounds might have had two separate passages, each aligned to a different solar event.

In smaller tombs, the roof of the chamber was made from flat slabs of rock placed directly on the side walls. For larger chambers of the bigger tombs such as Newgrange, this was not possible as the span is too wide. A different technique called 'corbelling' was used. A first layer of slabs rested on the walls and projected a short way, the next layer projected further, and so on until the final slab covered the hole in the centre. This gave the chamber a crude domed shape.

Passage tombs were usually built on the tops of mountains so that they could be seen from a long way off. The 'Fairy Castle' cairn on the top of Two Rock Mountain just south of Dublin, for example, can be seen 40 or 50 miles away (about 60 or 80km).

Wedge Tombs

The Wedge Tomb is the smallest and latest of the tomb types. These were built at the very end of the Neolithic Age from about 2500 to 2000 BC. There are more than 500. About quarter of all wedge tombs are in County Clare, another quarter in Southwest Ireland, and the remaining half are scattered mainly around the west and northwest of the country.

Here the chamber has become just a box. The passage widens to the doorway, in the wedge shape that gives the tomb its name. The whole thing is capped with flat stones and covered in a very small mound, sometimes only one metre high. Nowadays, the mound has been eroded away, leaving only the box-like stones of the tomb. Wedge tombs are usually built about three-quarters the way up a mountain, and the doorway nearly always faces southwest.

A good example of a wedge tomb can be found at Lough Gur, a wonderful site in County Limerick with many ancient remains, including the Great Stone Circle, the biggest in Ireland. Follow the signs from Limerick to Lough Gur, as far as the car park. Turn left out of the car park, bear right, turning right again at the next crossing. The tomb is signposted on your left. If you get as far as the new church, then you've gone too far. The tomb was built in about 2500 BC and is about 8m by 3.5m. The burial 'gallery' is divided into two chambers. Originally, it would have had a mound over it. Archaeological excavation has revealed the remains of at least eight adults and four children buried in it.

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Lough Gur

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A chthonic cult is one that is concerned exclusively with the underworld, from the ancient Greek word khthon, meaning Earth.

Caesar spelt out that the Druids claimed descent from and worshipped their own equivalent of Dis Pater, who in the Roman pantheon was a god of the underworld.

The most notable examples we have of a physical access to the underworld come from the swallets in the Mendips, a swallet being a natural or enhanced feature that someone such as Pomponius Mela could reasonably have described as a “specus” meaning variously a cave, grotto, pit or watercourse, while Pomponius Mela specified that these were places where the Druids held their meetings or conducted ceremonies. As you’ll have read from Jodie Lewis’ publication, it is reasonable to view the Wilsford Shaft near Stonehenge as an attempt to gain access, symbolically or otherwise, to a physical underworld, while there are almost certainly others in the area as well.

Stonehenge is self-evidently a place where it would have been very difficult to view any proceedings taking place inside from beyond the internal bank and sarsen circle, while as we’ve seen, “the Priddy Circles exaggerated and manipulated principles of exclusion and unequal access to ritual knowledge in a manner that as yet has few precedents.”

The Druids were the dominant and perhaps the only priesthood in Britain when Caesar described them in 55 BC and he clearly stated that they worshipped a chthonic god, or a god of the underworld. The archaeological evidence in this case alone shows that British chthonic cults almost certainly dated back as far as the Neolithic period (i.e. when Stonehenge was under construction), while we have the further evidence of a geographer to show that the Druids met or worshipped in stone structures other than groves. Physical evidence of such practises may well await discovery in the Mendips and around Stonehenge, while if you click on this link, you can see some ancient gold that recently came to light at Priddy. As far as I’m concerned, this matter of the shafts at Priddy is yet more evidence to show that the Druids and Druid practices were certainly not confined to the Iron Age and that they had a marked association with Stonehenge, but again, all this is merely the tip of the iceberg.

[Lori Anne]

Burial.

Three modes of disposing of the dead were practised in ancient Ireland.
First mode: the body was buried as at present. Second: sometimes the body of a king or warrior was placed standing up in the grave, fully accoutred and armed.
Third: the body was burned and the ashes were deposited in the grave in an ornamental urn of baked clay.

Often that sort of stone monument now known as a cromlech was constructed, formed of one great flat stone lying on the tops of several large standing stones, thus enclosing a rude chamber in which one or more bodies or urns were placed. These cromlechs--which are sometimes wrongly called druids' altars--remain in every part of Ireland; and skeletons, and urns containing burnt bones, have been found under many of them.

A mound of stones raised over a grave is called a cairn. In old times people had a fancy to bury on the tops of hills; and the summits of very many hills in Ireland are crowned with cairns, under every one of which--in a stone coffin--reposes some chief renowned in the olden time. Sometimes these mounds were of clay. All contain chambers. The greatest mounds in Ireland are those of Newgrange, Dowth, and Knowth, on the Boyne, five miles above Drogheda.

At the burial of important persons funeral games were celebrated: these gave origin to many of the Aenachs or fairs.