At last I managed to get out and see some sites. The weather forecast for Donegal was (relatively) good and I had a list of excellent stuff to see. The early items on the list were rock art, including the incredible stone at Duncarbit and the monster panel at Mevagh. I also popped in to Mevagh church yard to try and find the panel there.
The rock art didn't end at the planned rock art panels. At two other sites I went two I also came across cup marks on the roofstones of two tombs. A bonus site was the remains of the monastery founded near to the supposed location of St. Comcille's birth. The actual place that is said to be his birthplace is actually a megalithic kist, and this one of the sites that had masses of cup marks on its displaced capstone.
The two panels at Mevagh were a pleasure to see. The one in the churchyard was a lovely surprise, because this looks as if it was reused as a gravestone at some time. The main Mevagh panel, although quite worn and overgrown, is amazing. There are so many motifs on so many faces of the outcrop.
It was great to get out, especially as this trip took me to site 2000. I drove over 1000km to see these sites: the roads between the sites kept taking me back through Letterkenny! The 'mileometer' on my car passed 50,000km as I approached site 2000. A day of big numbers and great sites. One of the best I've had for a long time.
Todat Ken Williams and I climbed up Baltinglass Hill. The last time I went I swore it would be the last time. I'd looked for the carvings up there and found nothing, so I had no reason whatsoever to climb up there again. Then, Ken rings me and says that he'd been told that several of the kerb stones have carvings on them too - do I fancy going up. Oh no ... here we go again.
After my lungs nearly collapsed at several points on the climb (I really must give up smoking!) we reached the top and once again I was at this magnificent monument. The climb up is getting harder, because the band of gorse bushes on the west slopes is now of fairy tale thickness proportions. Anyone would think that there is a princess sleeping in a tower up there! Sadly we didn't find the carvings on the kerbstones even with a printout of Walshes plan in hand.
However, we did manage to get some photographs of the spirals on the orthostats of the one tomb. These are not visible to the naked eye, but can be seen with side flash. The problem with this is that you need to know which orthostats the carvings are on. Luckily for us the plan had these stones marked.
Ken was very impressed with the site, and rightly so. It's a great place and one of the county's real gems. This said, I still don't think I'll be back up there again in a hurry.
The weather was terrible today - so unpredictable. One moment it was raining heavily and the next it was sunny. Driving around doesn't help because sometimes you can be moving with or into the rain. On days like this I find it's best to plan visits to roadside monuments - it's not much fun being stuck on top of a hill when the rain comes down.
As I've mentioned quite often recently, I have tended to go to the big counties over the years and I need to spend some time in the 'lesser' counties megalithically speaking. Today it was Offaly's turn.
There aren't a lot of places in Offaly with the dramatic impact of a portal tomb, but it does have a lot barrows and, and this is where I get really interested, bullaun stones. I am now approaching 2000 monuments on megalithomania. I've been to more than that over the last 7+ years, but combining some of them into one site in the early days means that number-wise there are less than 2000.
I had planned my route today to take me to a bullaun stone for site 2000, but I think the rain stopped me one short: I'll see when I look at my notes later. I may have unwittingly made it to 2000 sites on megalithomania. If I have done so, then the 2000 site is a pretty uninspiring bullaun stone. If I haven't made it to 2000 I will target something really special for my first site on the next trip.
Today was one of the wonderful days in the year when my wife, Uta, and I go out together. It's always a pleasure to do so, as I not only have great company, but I get to revisit some great sites and experience new ones with her, too. Today we decided to head for Burren in Cavan. Here you can find wedge tombs, portal tombs, rock art and more: all within a short distance of each other. To help us find some of the monuments we had a little booklet with us produced by Gaby Burns who has, in recent years, spent much time surveying the area.
Apart from visiting the megalithic tombs in the area I wanted to track down the three rock art panels in the townland. This we did successfully and as an added bonus I found one that isn't included in the booklet and may well be a new panel.
After seeing all that the woodland area had to offer we went to see a nearby sweathouse, a cashel and a portal tomb. The portal tomb, although collapse has become one of my favourites and I think it's unique. Like others of its kind it has been altered to be used as a shelter - maybe even a sweathouse! - but what makes it special is the wall that it appears to be built into. This wall is very wide, much wider that all the other walls around the monument and extends along the central axis. I think this wall is the original cairn. If so, it is the only one left remaining to the height of the capstone. Fantastic!
The cashel we went to isn't the one I was hoping to see, but a second example in Moneygashel townland. The landowner for the other one (which has a sweathouse built inside it) denied that it existed, but she might have been confused about the area of land I was talking about and it might not be on their land. I'll have to go and find it another way. I don't mind an excuse to head back here as there is plenty of rock art to the north in Fermanagh to track down.
I'd planned a big trip to Achill Island for the weekend, but the weather was terrible. All too often recently I've let bad weather keep me from going out and I wasn't going to let it happen today. I wasn't going to go camping in it, but I wasn't going to stay indoors, either.
So, I set off for Westmeath to track down a few bullaun stones - no surprises with my choice of target really! I tend to ignore the midland counties, so it seemed like a good plan to see what I could find.
I had some success. I managed to track down some bullaun stones that I don't think have been visited for a long time. One is a big lump of limestone and another was the only one I've been to that is a quartzy comglomerate. I also went to a very interesting motte and bailey, which is in very good condition. The motte itself looks as if it could be a reused barrow.
All-in-all the weather was pretty bad. I came across several trees that the high winds had brought down and it didn't stop raining until mid-afternoon. I still had a very enjoyable day out, though.
After canceling my trip to Achill Island this weekend (too tired and a bad weather forecast) I decided to tidy up some things on megalithomania.com. Firstly, I have fixed the stylesheets for printing! You can now print these pages quite nicely. I have hidden the left-hand-side menus and all sorts of other gubbings that aren't needed in a print out. I've also increased the font size on the printouts. As well as sorting out printing I've been tidying up bits of code to make things a bit more streamlined. You'll not notice these as the final out come on the page is identical.
I have also added functionality to allow other users to rate a site/monument. A form can be found on each page to do this. Hopefully, it won't get abused and I can leave it on the pages. I don't want to have to add a verification graphic thing to it, but I will if it is misused. At some point I will add something to show a list of recent rating to the home page.
Hopefully, this will give visitors a more balanced view of sites. My opinion is only one of many, so a little extra help is a bonus.
My day started at Ballyglass (County Mayo) in the hope that it had been cleared. Sadly not. I had to find the farmer for a project we were thinking about and he told me that the site would 'stay overgrown for as long as he was alive'. Shame. He added that he was fed up with people just turning up and being disrespectful. Shame.
After that I went to Tawnatruffaun (County Sligo) to meet up with Ken Williams to hunt for a cup-and-ring marked stone near to the tomb. Sadly we found the stone embedded in the wall. I say sadly, because the stone turned out to be half a millstone, abandoned after it broke in two. The alledged ring is actually the scratched out position of the hole in the centre.
After that Ken headed home and I set off (with little hope) to find two tombs that I've looked for previously and (obviously) never managed to find. Today I found both of them. The first is an almost complete wedge tomb and the second an almost perfect court tomb with a roof and impressive corbelling.
I was starting to panic a bit. It was nearly a whole month since I had been to see a stone and there wasn't long to go before I found myself not having a site visit for a whole calendar month! May 08 was starting to look grim! This is because I have been working 12 hours a day for most of the week for the last 5 weeks and the weekends found me lacking in energy. I had to spend whatever energy I had left trying to finish Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Antrim.
Anyway, finally, on Sunday night I decided that I must go out and see something. Going down the road to a site I'd been to wasn't an option either: it had to be somewhere new. Preferably a new site not only to me but also to the internet. A little digging around turned up a good candidate, but it was risky - an inner-town bullaun. What were the chances of it still being there?
So, off I went to Clane. First impressions weren't good. I walked up and down the road and down side streets looking for big stones that could have enough room for a bullaun. I found a millstone surrounded by large boulders in a little park nearby, but none of these were the bullaun stone. A hand-painted map by a church showed the bullaun where I'd been walking, so one last walk down the road ...
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, Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Antrim.
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.
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.
