Moylisha Wedge Tomb

Moylisha Wedge Tomb, also called Labbanasighe, is a wedge-shaped gallery grave and National Monument in County Wicklow, Ireland. It stands on the north face of Moylisha Hill, 6.1 km (3.8 mi) west of Shillelagh. The catalogue dates it by typological estimate to between 2500 and 2000 BCE.

The tomb consists of a rectangular cairn measuring 13 x 10 meters, which incorporates a gallery 7.5 meters long aligned NW-SE. The gallery has a small antechamber separated by a low sill from the main chamber, which is 6 m long and widens toward the southeast. A single displaced roofstone lies in the gallery.

It was constructed around 2300-1000 BC, in the Copper Age or Bronze Age. The site was excavated in 1937 by Gearoid O h-Iceadha. The finds were potsherds, some cremated bone and two stone disks. Also found were two valves of a sandstone mould for lozenge-bladed socket-looped spearheads, which point to metalworking in the area at the time.

The old name Labbanasighe comes from the Irish leaba na saidhe, meaning Bed of the Bitch, that is, a female dog. The name might also mean Labbanasaighde, which translates as Bed of the Arrow or Shaft, and this reading may be supported by finds from the archaeological digs. Local folklore in Parkbridge explains the name differently: in the local area it is pronounced like Lob-na-Sy, said to mean Bed of the Fairies.

A wedge tomb takes its name from the way the burial chamber narrows at one end, usually decreasing both in height and in width from west to east, which gives it a wedge shape in profile. An antechamber is separated from the burial area by a simple stone slab. Wedge tombs are one of the four categories of Irish megalithic tomb described by Sean O Nuallain and Ruaidhri de Valera in their survey of 1961. The gallery graves of western Europe were probably community burial sites, where family or hamlet members were laid to reinforce the sense of community.

Moylisha Wedge Tomb is located on the north face of Moylisha Hill, 6.1 km (3.8 mi) west of Shillelagh.