Many of you will know Marianne through her posts in my guestbook and more recently her posts in the megalithomania.com forums. Today I had the pleasure of being treated to a tour of a lot of monuments and was able to share her enthusiasm and passion for The Burren. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this for me!

We started off revisiting an old favourite of mine - Templecronan (County Clare) - a beautiful early church tucked away in a small dell hidden from sight. We then went to the nearby well.

From there it was time for some tombs. Templecronan is not far from the tombs at Rannagh East & West. We went to Rannagh East, but decided to move on from there as Rannagh West could have taken a while to relocate in the thick hazel scrub.

The next group of sites was the incredible complex at Fannygalvan: two wedge tombs, a stone row, a cairn or two, hut circles and a chambered cairn with a tiny exposed cist. On the way up to this hilltop complex we found what may be a new boulder burial! From there we walked to a nearby cashel.

By now it was time for a late lunch. I'd already drank half of Marianne's coffee! We decided to head for Templeline, a lovely ruined church that would have been similar to Templecronan in its day: hidden away, but not quite so secretively.

Time for more tombs. Next was the diminutive wedge tomb at Coolnatullagh. Before we moved on to our final tombs we stopped at Tobar Fachtnan, one of the most unusual holy wells I've ever been to, which is surrounded by penitentiary cairns.

Now, how does this sound? It has been a very long day, so you decide to walk for over a mile across Burren limestone pavements? I don't know who's crazier, me or Marianne: she knew what was in store for her! However, I'm very grateful to her for doing so, because Eantymore wedge tomb is a sweet, yet quite ruined one. On the way we saw a souterrain. Unfortunately, I had left my GPS in her car, so I don't have exact coordinates for these.

We finished off at Poulaphuca (County Clare), a site I visited in 2002. Here we managed to find the nearby cist and spotted another small cairn a bit further away.

What an amazing day. I can't repeat enough what a pleasure it was! Thanks!

I haven't been to many sites in Laois, but then there aren't many sites in Laois to go to. I had a quick look at the barrow cemetery at Great Heath, where I've been to one barrow, but the rest are spread across a golf course. I think this is one for early one Summer morning.

So, I set off to visit the Rock of Dunamase and a holy well and church. I've seen the castle on the Rock of Dunamase many times and often pondered its location as it looks to be surrounded by small hills. After sitting on the top with a flask of coffee for a while I started to see what the site is about and why it is actually so good for a castle.

The church wasn't as spectacular as I'd hoped, but someone is looking after the place and work appears to be going on to make it nice. The holy well, just down the road from the church, is a bit of a mess and needs tidying up and a bit of TLC. Perhaps it's just because it's winter (I know it's spring, but it feels like winter!) and it may get a bit of attention when the weather improves.

One of my goals for this year involves seeing more sites in Monaghan and this is where I decided to concentrate my efforts today. The weather was fantastic and we (my daughter and I) enjoyed a couple of hours in Rossmore Forest, where we had a nice walk, took some photos and saw a court tomb. This is a lovely place and the people of Monaghan are so lucky to have this right on their doorstep.

After the forest we set off in a southwesterly direction and visited a few more tombs, including a beautiful wedge tomb and a great court tomb. At two sites we came across little piles of snow hidden behind hedges where the ground sees no sun at this time of year. One of the sites was in stark contrast to the others, because all that remains is one slab and a small upright. I'm not sure what was more saddening: the poor state of this monument or the fact that the young farmer we asked about its whereabouts didn't know it was anything other than a couple of stones in the field.

The sun was so bright and so low that it was hard to take photos at times due to the harsh shadows it cast. Anyway, that doesn't really matter when you're out and about with good company!

This week I set out to visit some new places and some I had previously visited. The reason for the planned revisits was to go to monuments that I thought would look good in 3D. Yes, 3D! I've bought one of Fuji's new 3D cameras and although I won't be able to share the proper 3D images with you all I will be putting up some anaglyph images for you all. So, it's time to go back to the 80s, get out those blue and red glasses and start seeing things in 3D. As soon as the images are up on megalithomania I will add a new section to the home page and there'll be a new section on the site pages. 3D glasses will be available from my shop.

Talking of the shop: I've mentioned t-shirts in the past. Well, I've got two designs ready that I'll be adding to the shop soon, too. There will be more on the way later on.

Back to the trip. Myself and my daughter visited sites in Kildare, Carlow and Wexford, basically doing a small circuit around Mount Leinster. We had planned a couple of Wicklow sites on the way home, but we couldn't keep ahead of the rain.

We tried to visit a portal tomb I've not been to, but thoroughbred horses and no owner at home stopped us. I'll be back there though, as I have contact information now. The main site of the day was St. Mullins. What a great place it is. There's so much to see: a holy well, a high cross, churches, a motte and bailey, more churches and a lovely little high cross. If you go in season there's a visitor centre, too.

Seriously! My last trip was to the Curragh where I encountered thick fog. Today I went to the Little Curragh where I encountered thin fog. Curragh = thick fog and Little Curragh = thin fog.

Unlike my last trip I was able to walk about today and find barrows. Wow! The barrows here are amazing. I don't know of anywhere else in Ireland where you can walk amongst so many barrows. My walk only lasted about 2 hours and I visited over 10 barrows!

I actually think that some of these barrows need reassessing, beacuse at least 2 of them have causewayed entrances on the west side. Should these be reclassified as henges? Around one of these larger barrows I came across several small barrows, which helped bump the numbers up quite quickly.

One of the most spectacular monuments I saw was a barrow that is so big it has 2 golf course greens inside its outer banks. Between the two greens within this 50m embanked area is a central barrow that has at least three more banks and ditches around it!

On the way back to the car I came across something that I've never heard mention of before. I am sure that the Curragh/Little Curragh has been thoroughly studied so can I have found something new. I certainly hope so, but I probably haven't. Either way, a dead straight line of at least 8 small barrows is a pretty amazing thing to stumble across. What makes it more wonderful is that the alignment is southwest/northeast.

If anyone out there knows the Curragh area really well from an archaeological angle please contact me. I need to know whether I've found something new here. Titles of existing publications or papers that mention this feature would be welcome, too.

The day started with having to make a trip to Dalkey, Dublin. While in the area I stopped at Kill Of The Grange (County Dublin). It's very close to home and I haven't been to it for over seven years.

Then my trip began properly and I set off for the Curragh in County Kildare. As I got closer the fog got thicker. Not a promising start. It didn't end too well either, because the fog never cleared. The purpose of my trip was to hunt down some barrows on The Curragh and The Little Curragh. I just about managed to find one, but was forced to give up.

Not wanting to go straight home I went into Kildare to see the round tower up close. I knew I wouldn't be able to go inside at this time of year, but I wanted to get a bit closer than on my previous attempt. I also wanted to see St. Brigit's Firehouse, St. Brigit's Kitchen and the high cross. The latter means that I will have completed my first goal for this year when I complete the entry.

Now, some news for megalithomania.com. I now have some forums (fora?). Just use the link on the left and come and join us. Registration is free. There's even a photo gallery available for members to upload their own photos.

I simply had to get out after seeing Ken Williams' photos of Haroldstown (County Carlow) on The Modern Antiquarian. A dolmen in the snow is a great thing to get to. Sadly, it started snowing heavily this morning, so a trip to Haroldstown was out of the question.

I decided to do something I've never done before: make exactly the same trip two outings in a row. So, back to Glendruid (County Dublin), Tully Church (County Dublin) and Laughlanstown (County Dublin) it was. Now I know the new simple way of getting to Glendruid it was easy, although today I parked at the farm at the bottom of the lane to Tully Church and walked all the way.

It's so good to get out again. I've been at home all last week catching up on some long overdue holiday time and haven't been able to use it. The snow for tomorrow looks like it'll be heavy, so I'll not be able to get out then.

So, 2009 is drawing to a close and 2010 is just a day away. I will be heading out in the New Year - I usually try to get out on New Year's Day itself - to see some new sites. This will be the start of my attempt to reach as many of my targets for 2010 as possible. I will soon add a new page to the lefthand menu so that people can keep track of my efforts to fulfill my wish list over the year.

The list is nearly complete with some simple tasks that I can do in the weeks that I don't go out and others that will require a lot of planning to achieve, such as visiting all Ireland's portal tombs .

Anyway, back to today. I had intended to head down into Carlow, but after waking up very early this morning and failing to get back to sleep again I decided to do a bit of tidying up - my desk and office is a mess! I have a lot of books and excavation reports to catalog and I need to make plans for next year. Staying at home and getting this done seemed like a sensible move.

By 1 o'clock I was going a little stir crazy, so I decided to head out and see what effect the new Luas line construction is having or will finally have on Glendruid (County Dublin), my local portal tomb. The old route is now blocked, so I tried via the lane to Tully Church (County Dublin). The Luas line crosses this so accessing the track to attempt to reach the stream seemed likely. It's good news for megalith lovers! Glendruid portal tomb will soon have its very own Luas stop. Fantastic! It will be very easy to get off at this stop and walk along the stream to reach the monument. I'd like to know why Brenanstown station is sunken, though. Is it just to hide it so that a few local people can't see it? This sinking of the station means that the track goes down to the station, through a tunnel and then climbs back out to ground level again. What an expense! What a waste of tax payers money!

Anyway, enough ranting. While I was in the area I continued up to Tully Church to see the cross and to just enjoy the spot. The site, which is very special is now trapped by the Luas to the east and the motorway to the west. It used to be trapped by the sea and the mountains.

So, November 2009 became only the second month in 8 years that I haven't been out to visit a monument. I have to admit that I was very tempted on the last day of the month to walk up the road to see my local standing stone, but I resisted. I'm working too much lately and the point needed making to myself as much as anyone.

For a long time now I've wanted to get to the cairn on the top of Seefingan Mountain. I've seen it from Seehan and Seefin, but I've never actually made it to the top of the mountain itself. Today was the perfect opportunity, so I parked by the Kippure Adventure Centre and set off up the hill. What a hill!!! Even though I was heading straight up the slopes I still got a little lost and took a slightly longer route that I'd planned.

When I arrived at the top I was rewarded with fine views over Kildare and south across the Wicklow Mountains. You can see over Dublin from up there and Howth and Lambay are very visible. I always feel close to home when I can make out Howth or Lambay. The cairn is an impressive one, but not as impressive as Seefin, where I headed next. I'm sure Seefingan has a passage tomb inside, but having access to the passage at Seefin makes it a special place.

I saw three walkers at Seefingan and one man and his dog at Seefin. The latter was not dressed for being on top of a mountain. On my way down I fell down a hole and hurt my leg. Luckily nothing was broken, but at least I had survival stuff in my backpack if I had been in trouble. Some people are so stupid. You may be just a few miles from home, but on a barren hillside exposure is a serious threat. Dress sensibly when heading into the mountains.

This weekend my daughter wanted to come out with me and get some experience of photographing something other than people (which she is quite amazing at!) After looking at the weather forecast it looked as if going north was the best plan, so I planned a trip to some portal tombs, a sweat house and some court tombs to bring in some variety. For a finale I scheduled a stop off at Beaghmore! Everyone should be forced to visit Beaghmore!

How wrong was Saturday's forecast for Sunday? Very, very wrong! It rained all day. Still, se soldiered on and tried our best. Lyzzi wanted to do some landscape photography, too, but we couldn't see anything past the edge of whichever field we were in all day long.

As well as revisiting some good photographic sites, I managed to fit in two new sites - a court tomb and a wedge tomb.

The weather didn't even come close to ruining a great day out with my daughter, though. How could it?