Donore Megalithic Tomb
DatedEst. 3300–2900 BCE
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Donore Megalithic Tomb (locally “The Fairy Stone”) stands in a small wood in the townland of Donore (Irish Dún Uabhair, “fortress of pride”), 1.5 km east of the River Barrow and 2.5 km south of Muine Bheag in County Carlow, Ireland. It is dated on a typological estimate to between 3300 and 2900 BCE.
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Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Donore Megalithic Tomb
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Donore Megalithic TombCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Donore Megalithic TombCC BY-SA 4.0
The monument cannot be assigned to a type or an orientation. It consists of a massive granite slab measuring 2.95 × 3.6 m, broken into two pieces. The capstone is supported in the north by an upright stone 2.1 m long and 1.3 to 1.0 m high, and rests in the south on natural bedrock. It cannot be established with certainty that this is an original megalithic structure.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Donore Megalithic TombCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Donore Megalithic TombCC BY-SA 4.0
Ballymoon Castle lies nearby.
Scholars have distinguished four categories of megalithic tomb: court cairns, portal dolmens, wedge-shaped gallery graves and passage tombs, each with a different date, shape and geography.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Donore Megalithic TombCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Donore Megalithic TombCC BY-SA 4.0
Ireland has an unusually rich megalithic heritage. Scholars have distinguished four categories of megalithic tomb: court cairns, portal dolmens, wedge-shaped gallery graves and passage tombs, each with a different date, shape and geography.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Megalithic tombs of Ireland
Ireland has an unusually rich megalithic heritage, and the Atlas lists several kinds under one heading. In 1961 two Irish scholars, Seán Ó Nualláin and Rúaidhrí de Valera, described four categories of megalithic tomb: court cairns, portal dolmens, wedge-shaped gallery graves and passage tombs. Each has a different date, shape and geography.
Court cairns, with an uncovered courtyard at the front and roofed chambers behind, are the earliest; more than 390 were built in Ireland between 3900 and 3500 BCE, mostly in the north and west. Portal dolmens are single-chamber tombs with tall portal stones, of which Ireland has about 172, with Poulnabrone in the Burren the best known. Passage tombs, with a long passage leading to a chamber, form great cemeteries: Brú na Bóinne, Loughcrew, Carrowkeel and Carrowmore. Wedge tombs, with a chamber that narrows towards the back, are later, built between about 2500 and 2000 BCE, and 500 to 550 survive, mostly in the west and north-west.
Of the Irish megalithic tombs, only passage tombs appear to have a widespread distribution through Europe.
The Atlas gives each tomb its type's date range, which should be taken as approximate unless the site has been excavated.
Folklore: at Proleek in County Louth the dolmen is said, by local legend, to have been carried there by a Scottish giant, who was poisoned by the hero Fionn mac Cumhaill. It is a story, not evidence of date.
When visiting, check which of the four types you are looking at: a courtyard in front means a court cairn, tall portal stones mean a portal tomb, a narrowing chamber a wedge tomb, and a long passage a passage tomb.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Passage grave, Wikipedia: Court cairn, Wikipedia: Portal dolmen, Wikipedia: Wedge-shaped gallery grave, Wikipedia: Newgrange, Wikipedia: Poulnabrone dolmen, Wikipedia: Proleek Dolmen, Wikipedia: Carrowmore, Wikipedia: Loughcrew, Wikipedia: Carrowkeel Megalithic Cemetery · CC BY-SA 4.0
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 3300–2900 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megaliths in Ireland; this site has not been dated itself. Megalithic construction in Ireland is placed at c. 3400 BC (Newgrange) and court cairns continued to be built until 2900 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Ireland
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 52°40′43″ N, 6°56′57″ WFor a GPS or map app: 52.67862, -6.94903
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
portal tomb of Kilgraney4000–3000 BCE- Menhir (standing stone)Menhir von Ballyellin2800–1800 BCE
Ballygraney Portal Tomb4000–3000 BCE
Ballynasilloge4000–3000 BCE
Coolasnaghta Stone Row2800–1800 BCE- Portal tomb (portal dolmen)Portal Tomb von Knockroe4000–3000 BCE
- Menhir (standing stone)Menhir von Glenoge2800–1800 BCE
- CistBaunogenasraid2820–2750 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q51075874wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Donore Megalithic Tomb" (German), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (German): Donore Megalithic TombCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q51075874CC0