Megalithomania - Trip Blog

April 27, 2008: One Last Visit? - 0 Sites

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Is this the last trip to Antrim for a while? I'm not 100% sure yet, but it could be. I will just have to see how things go over the next week or so. I might realise that I need to revisit somewhere or that I've missed something that can't be omitted from the book, [i]Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Antrim[/i].

I was surprised today by how many monuments (mainly standing stones) have disappeared. Quite a lot of sites marked on the OS maps are no longer there. On the plus side, I've managed to visit a number of Antrim sites that aren't on the OS maps!

Today was all about the last few sites (I hope). Some standing stones, a court tomb, a hillfort with a view and some cairns. The cairns were disappointing, but had great views. The court tomb, although ruined, is a nice one - it would have been quite impressive when complete.

With the Bank Holiday weekend approaching I may make one final visit to County Antrim. I'd like to get to Rathlin Island.

April 13, 2008: Nearly Done in Antrim - 9 Sites

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Today I was back in Antrim again. I didn't see a large amount of sites, which disappointed me a little bit at first, but then I realised this is because there isn't a lot left for me to see for the book. I think one more weekend will finish the field trips. Now it's just down to finishing writing it all up. The plan is to get the manuscript to the publishers early in May. However, there's a lot of excavation reports and ancillary texts to trawl through to make sure I haven't missed anything. I don't think I have so far.

The sites today were mainly standing stones in the western half of the county. There are some lovely ones out there, but many of the stones on my list have disappeared. The most exciting thing I saw was a tomb that appears nowhere on the internet, yet. It's not on the OS maps, but it's easy to find (once you know where it is!)

The weather today was great. I'm happy that I didn't take any notice of the weather forecast. I was in t-shirt and sunglasses all day long!

I am currently waiting for the cover art work to come back from design. There'll be no major surprises, because we will be sticking to the same simple format, but I don't know what colours they will use. The slight delay in me finishing the text means that it is unlikely that we will get an early summer publication, but hopefully we will manage it before the summer has ended.

March 17, 2008: Some Hilltops and Then Home - 12 Sites

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

After staying the night in Bushmills, County Antrim, I set off to revisit a few sites and take in a few new ones if I could. The weather was brilliant and there are a few sites I'd only been to in poor weather, so these were top of my list. I revisited the ruined passage tomb at West Torr (County Antrim) and walked back up to the lovely passage tomb at Carnanmore (County Antrim), before going to the court tomb at Lubitavish (see Ossian's Grave (County Antrim)). This took me very close to the very important axe factory on Tievebulliagh. It took me a while to find out who owned the land here and get permission to walk up the hill, so this is where my day ended.

Moving on ...
I'm writing this day up very late indeed. On 19th March many of you will have seen myself on RTEs Nationwide program. This website has been buzzing ever since. I really appreciate the comments I've been getting from lots and lots of people! The next step is to convince RTE that they would like to do a small series about Ireland's amazing prehistoric heritage that is a bit more serious and in depth than some of the recent attempts that have been made.

So, many thanks to everyone for you support and kind words! I feel re-invigorated and inspired to get out there and do more. I'm charging through [i]Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Antrim[/i] at a good pace, so a summer publication date is looking likely.

March 16, 2008: The Standing Stones of Knocklayd - 23 Sites

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today is the first day of a two day trip to Antrim. Most of the day was spent around Knocklayd Mountain visiting the standing stone and early Christian remains. I didn't reach all of the standing stones around this fine mountain, but I did see the majority of them. One more trip and I should get to see the rest.

After encircling Knocklayd I headed off to see a few more sites of interest. One of these was Skerry church, which is perched on top of a high rocky outcrop. It is from this place that St. Patrick is said to have tried to step on to the top of Slemish Mountain to the east. He failed to do so and landed in the river below. He is said to have left a footprint at Skerry and one in a stone in the river. Below Skerry church I tracked down the remains of a court tomb, which until now was considered destroyed and lost.

I spent the night at The Causeway Hotel, right next to the Giant's Causeway visitor centre. This gave me the rare chance to visit the Causeway after most of the other visitors had left. When devoid of packs of tourists it is an incredible wonder to behold!

March 09, 2008: A Bit Pushed For Time - 25 Sites

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I didn't have a lot of time this week for going out, so once again I headed down to Wicklow to hunt down a couple of things. I managed to locate another bullaun stone and a cup-marked stone - I actually thought I was looking for a bullaun stone, but it turned out to be a cup-marked stone with a possible bullaun in it.

The bullaun stone I did find is a lovely one, but it's in a reservoir and so a bit tricky to see properly. A bit of shallow wading and then a climb up a nearby tree allowed me a limited view, but I'll have to go back in the summer when the water's a bit lower to take a better look.

I've managed to catch up on all the images from my previous trips now and I'll get these two sites up as soon as possible. I've also updated the Google Earth .KMZ files, so all sites up to this weekend's trip are available.

As before, work on [i]Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Antrim[/i] is on schedule, so a mid to late summer release is looking likely!

March 02, 2008: All Hail (In) Antrim - 31 Sites

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

What a day! It rained a little bit after I'd passed Belfast, but it wasn't much. I certainly wasn't expecting the hail and snow I got at the top of Knocklayd Mountain! Amazingly, there was a group of people climbing up it, too. Hello to you if you come across this.

As usual I had a list of sites to see, but (as usual lately) rain late in the day stopped my site-seeing. I did manage to get to a few new sites and revisit a couple of others to take another look at them. One of these revisits was to the two portal tombs at Ballyvennaght on the way to the nearby standing stone. The other sites included the cairn on top of Knocklayd, two stone pairs and a court tomb. The latter, [i]Carndoo[/i] at Ballyboley, was particularly interesting, because although the court is ruined the gallery still has much of its roof - a real rarity.

As soon as I've finished adding last week's images I'll pop the new Seasick Steve CD on to play and get on with writing this trip up properly.

Work on [i]Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Antrim[/i] is on schedule, so a mid to late summer release is looking likely! It'll soon be time to start on the fourth book, which will cover a county from Connaght, but I still don't know which one yet.

February 24, 2008: A Tour Of Wexford - 43 Sites

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A while ago I set off to see some of the standing stones of Wexford, but was turned back by poor weather. Today I decided to retry the trip and to also see some other Wexford monuments, including Wexford's only recorded bit of rock art. Sadly, this lone piece of rock art was not to be found. It lies somewhere in the middle of a plantation, which has recently been 'cleared' leaving the area looking like a demolition site. I don't hold out much hope for this stone unless it was moved before planting.

That aside, the day was quite successful. I saw several standing stones, a fine stone pair, revisited a stone row and a portal tomb, and saw a good selection of bullaun stones (no surprises there!). I'm glad I went back to the stone row. I only managed to see it through a hedge last time and I thought it was rather small. In fact it's massive and wonderful!

The sites took me on a zig-zag trip down and repeatedly across the county, passing through towns and villages I'd not been to before. It's always a pleasure to see new places, but there's something odd about Wexford - when you stop and talk to people they're really friendly, but they don't give you that little raised-index-finger-wave as they drive past on country lanes that you get around the rest of the country.

February 17, 2008: Two Gents And Tales Of A Saint - 55 Sites

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Not too long ago I received an email from someone pointing out that County Laois has much more than megalithomania.com features. This is true, although I have to say not a great deal in the way of things megalithic. Anyway, with the freezing fog that was around this morning I didn't want to head up to Antrim again, so I headed across country to Laois and Tipperary.

The sites on my list had some variation to them, too. Not just rock art and bullaun stones this time (I ended up seeing quite a few more bullaun stones.) I started at a very accessible roadside barrow and proceeded via a round tower and a sheela-na-gig to a string of bullaun stones.

I'd previously been to the round tower at Timahoe, but I didn't have any pictures of the lovely Romanesque doorway. Nor did I have a proper grid reference for the site - I noticed that the one on megalithomania.com is way out!

The sheela-na-gig at Cullahill is one I'd tried to see before, but I'd been looking on the wrong wall of the castle. It has been known to become covered in ivy from time to time, too, so that could explain my previous failures to see it. It is now cleared and easy to see ... when you know where it is.

The bullauns were mainly in Tipperary, where I was following in the footsteps of local a man, Derek, who has already visited many of them.

At one of the sites, a bullaun stone known as St. Kieran's Knee, I met two lovely gentlemen who told me tales of how the bullaun stone and the nearby holy well got their name. These two chaps keep the well and stone in good order and would love for it to be signposted so that more people can enjoy them and even use them for the cures they are supposed to provide. It's great to meet people like this and the country could do with many more of them. Sadly, I'm not sure there'll be people to follow that will take such pride in their local treasures.

February 10, 2008: Off The Beaten Track In Antrim - 60 Sites

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

With the forecast looking good I arranged to meet Anthony Weir in Antrim in order to see some little-visited tombs. As I passed Belfast the fog became really thick and I thought that we'd not get to see anything, but it eventually started to lift after our first site. It never really cleared though and the sky stayed bright white making it very difficult to take pictures.

Among the sites on my target list were Ireland's longest court tomb and a small monument that was once used as a pigsty! The former is incredible and hardly touched, while the latter is rather cute, but presents a few classification questions. We eventually decided it was similar to the tomb at Ballylumford (County Antrim).

It wasn't possible to see al the sites I wanted to, because I don't know my northeast from my northwest and we spent quite a while talking to one of the farmers we met. Mis-remembering that a site lay northeast of a mountain meant we went for a long walk that we didn't need to do, which cost us about an hour.

February 09, 2008: This Is Not A Repeat! - 70 Sites

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

What? More bullaun stones? Surely not!? I'm afraid so, folks. After a quick chat with Chris Corlett during the week I was armed with loads of information about some bullaun stones that I've looked for many times. Today I found them, so I owe Chris great thanks.

As well as the many bullaun stones I was also able to find several pieces of rock art that I've been hunting down for many years now. I've been looking for one of them for 7 years! ... and it's in somebody's front garden. It was feared that the stone had been lost or buried, but it's safe and sound.

I met up Ken Williams in the afternoon, but we were both limited in time by then. We went to the lovely, but worn, rock art panel at Tinnacarreg. Hiding under the brambles that covered the stone until recently we uncovered two bullaun stones right next to the panel. After that we headed off to track down a second stones in Ballinkillin.

What a great day. Six bullaun stones and five rock art panels. The crazy thing is that I drove past at least 15 bullaun stones [i]en route[/i]! You can only have days like this around the Wicklow Mountains.

January 27, 2008: A Beautiful Day Around Glenarm - 77 Sites

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I'm starting to love County Antrim more and more. Not only is it chocked full of wonderful monuments, but the landscape is beautiful and the people are so friendly. Stopping and talking to farmers is seriously slowing me down on my research, but I don't mind that much. It's a pleasure to pass the time of day with these great people.

Today the weather was outstanding. I was rather glad about this, because one of the sites I was visiting involved a 3km walk. The lovely, phallic standing stone on Ballygilbert Hill is great. I was very surprised at its size, too. I had expected something a lot smaller. The view over the bay below and out to sea towards the Maidens or Hulin Rocks and northeast to The Mull of Kintyre is pretty good too!

I managed to get to al but one of the sites on my list today as well as stumbling across a couple of cairns that I wasn't expecting to see. As well as seeing a few new monuments I also popped back to see the rather ungainly portal tomb at Ticloy (County Antrim) that I visited some 900 monuments ago.

Last week saw my monument count go over 1900 - quite a landmark. I'm not sure when I'll reach 2000 at the moment, because a lot of the ones I have not seen are rather spread out now: there's little opportunity to go and blitz an area and see 20 in one go these days.

I still don't know when the piece we recorded for RTÃ�'s Nationwide program will be broadcast, but I'll let you all know as soon as I do. As mentioned last week I have rewritten one of my other websites - [url="http://www.monu-mental.com"]monu-metal.com[/url], which features news and info about my books. This new site is now live.

January 20, 2008: No Trip This Week - 77 Sites

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This weekend was supposed to involve a trip to Antrim, but the weather conspired against me once more. Well, the weather forecast conspired against me - on Friday it said Saturday would be ok, but when Saturday arrived it said differently. It did say that Sunday would be ok, though. However, when Sunday arrived it had changed again, so I decided to stay at home. Typically, Sunday turned out to be a nice day after all!

Staying at home wasn't too bad, though. I did start to rewrite one of my other websites, which I'll relaunch soon. My new, high-spec web server also meant that some of the code for this website needed attention. The move to the new server gave me the opportunity to upgrade various things and these newer versions caused a few problems. I'm fairly certain that I'v overcome these now, but there may still be a few issues on some of the less frequented pages.

As well as the above I also refined the designs for the t-shirts I am thinking of producing. These feature rare and wonderful old line drawings of megalithic monuments taken from 19th Century books. I will probably put a small number up for sale via the shop soon, so keep an eye out for an announcement on the home page and here in my blogs.

January 06, 2008: More Bullauns And Another New Bit Of Rock Art - 88 Sites

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

After the excitement of going out filming for RTÉ yesterday I needed something more gentle. Recently Andy Ryan stumbled upon two bullaun stones right next to Ullard (County Kilkenny) church in Kilkenny, so I headed off to see those.

En route I stopped off at another one I only heard about recently and revisited the stone at Kildreenagh (County Carlow). While at Kildreenagh I also hunted out the second bullaun in a field close by. Whilst returning from this stone I spotted an earthfast boulder with a single cupmark - another previously unrecorded piece of rock art within sight of Mount Leinster.

When I reached Ullard I met a couple visiting the holy well near to the bullauns - the well is still in regular use and still believed to cure ailments. I let the couple take the waters before photographing the well. Then the rain came, so my day was cut short, but luckily not by much and I'd seen most of the sites I'd set out to see.

January 05, 2008: The First Trip For 2008 - 89 Sites

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to 2008! I got off to a slow start this year, because I didn't go out on New Year's Day as I have done in recent years. However, the first trip of the year turned out to be a very interesting one. For once I won't be posting details of all the sites I visited, because today I had a RTÉ reporter and cameraman with me. We were recording a little piece for Nationwide. Ill let you all know when it's due to air.

The only site I'll mention is the lovely little urban portal tomb in Ballybrack (County Dublin). I was shocked to see that the top of the capstone has been badly vandalised. Graffiti has been daubed all over it in white paint.

December 30, 2007: One Last Trip For 2007 - 95 Sites

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I have seen so much rock art lately that you're probably getting a bit tired of seeing nothing else, so today was a trip to break the recent trend. Today I was off to see passage tombs! Not any old passage tombs and not your usual suspects, either. Today was about Antrim and its small group of coastal, passage-less passage tombs plus the amazing hilltop passage tomb-proper at Carnanmore.

I had meant to see a lot more on my way up through Antrim, but it was very foggy for the best part of the morning, forcing me to drive on by many interesting looking sites. Luckily, by the time I reached a bit further north the mist and fog had all cleared and I was able to make my ascent up a rough, boggy hillside to Carnanmore.

The site before Carnanmore was a real surprise. I was expecting a court tomb, but instead found a southerly outlier to the northern coastal passage tomb group. And what views, too! That comment applies from most of the sites I went to today - I could see clearly across to Scotland at one point!

Once again the people of Antrim made me feel very welcome. Lovely chats and kind permission to visit the sites is always a feature of a trip to Antrim.

December 26, 2007: Some New Rock Art For Carlow - 100 Sites

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

For some weeks/months now myself and Ken Williams have been trying to pick the right day to hunt down a lovely rock art panel in Crannagh townland, County Carlow. It's a 1.9km walk from the road to the stone, which is situated on a rocky slope making finding it quite daunting. While I was waiting for Ken to arrive a local farmer told me the best route up the hill, but knew nothing of the stone. Then, shortly after Ken arrived, a local man (named Mike I think - my memory's terrible so forgive me if I'm wrong) stopped to chat. He'd tried finding the stone himself before, but hadn't managed it. I gave him the GPS coordinates I had, which are pretty accurate - they turned out to be just 14m out.

The walk up the valley alongside Mountain River is a relatively easy one. All the time the top of Mount Leinster beckons you onward - well, today just the radio mast was poking through some low cloud, but the effect is almost the same. The stone is a beauty. After spending quite some time photographing the panel and saying that there must be some more in the area I wandered off to look at a few stones. I was attracted to the largest rock on the hillside and guess what ... it is decorated! It is not as nice as the first panel, nor as well-preserved, but it's there and I discovered it! My first rock art discovery! What's more, the first Crannagh panel was thought to be the highest in Leinster, but not any more. This new panel is about 10m higher.

After returning to our cars we called in at a farm in Knocksquire to see if we could see another panel that was found nearby and moved to the farmyard. It now resides in Carlow museum according to the farmer.

I then headed home via the lovely wall-embedded rock art panel at Ballinkillin to get a good GPS reading and some better photos.

December 09, 2007: More Bullauns For The List - 106 Sites

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Today I went to Wexford on another bullaun hunt. Despite being very wet I saw some lovely things. I found five bullaun stones, one of which is at the very nice ruined Romanesque church at Clone. Not a great deal of its decoration is left, but the door pillars and several carved heads are still there, as is a little cross and a sundial.

Normally, finding five bullauns would be enough excitement for me (I'm obviously easy to please!), but [i]Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Waterford[/i] is now available in the shops and directly from the megalithomania shop. To celebrate the release of my second title I have reduce the shipping costs on my books. Now there is free delivery within Ireland and its just 1 Euro for the rest of the world! Every copy of both books sold from now on will also be signed.

So, come on - there's probably still time to order either book and get it in time for Christmas!

November 25, 2007: Carlow Cut Short - 111 Sites

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Once again the weather forecast dictated where I headed for, today. The west was not looking good, so Carlow seemed like a good idea. I abandoned the plans for my Clare trip and headed south with a list of bullaun stones and some more rock art panels to see.

I managed a handful of sites when I had news that my youngest daughter's snake, Raspberry, was not well, so I turned around and headed home to take it to the vets. Sadly, the poor little thing died before I got back. This prompted a trip into town to get a replacement to ease the sorrow. R.I.P Raspberry!

The sites I did get to were rather varied in quality. A massive bullaun and the beautiful rock art panel at Knockbrack were preceded by a small, broken bullaun.

November 18, 2007: Very Wet In The Kingdom - 117 Sites

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I keep being drawn back to Derrynablaha in County Kerry. There's something special about a valley with nearly 40 rock art panels dotted around it (although some of these are actually in the neighbouring townland.) After locating grid references for many of the panels myself and Ken Williams decided to head down there again and see what we could find. Although we both saw to panels that one of us hadn't been to before there was only one panel that was new to both of us. Ken took me to a couple of panels that he'd found previously and we went back to a couple that I have found before.

We didn't manage to get across the valley into the next townland, because the river was too swollen to cross and it was getting too late to drive around to the other side. Another trip to see these is definitely on the cards though, but perhaps this should be left until the Spring when the days are long enough to fit more in.

Some of the stones we failed to find may actually be there still. I had a little mishap loading my GPS from my PC and I think some of the coordinates got messed up. This has prompted me to order a new GPS with some extra features and some proper software to load it up with.

Despite getting very, very wet in the frequent rain storms it was a good day. I got to try out some of the things I have learned about my flash setup, but I still haven't got it sussed properly: for a start I need to learn to be more patient and allow the flashes to recharge properly between shots!

November 11, 2007: West Of Roundwood - 123 Sites

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

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.

November 04, 2007: Carlow Rock Art Hunt - part 2 - 128 Sites

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

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 [i]in situ[/i]. I hope to go and see it next Saturday.

November 03, 2007: Carlow Rock Art Hunt - 131 Sites

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

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.

October 27, 2007: Rain Doesn't Stop Play in Donegal - 145 Sites

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100

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.

October 14, 2007: Not a Lot of Action in North Wexford - 147 Sites

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100

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 [i]Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Waterford[/i] 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.)

October 07, 2007: Rock Scribings In County Louth - 154 Sites

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100

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.