MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS
OF IRELAND.COM
OF IRELAND.COM
| KILCLOONEY MORE PORTAL TOMB I |
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| This portal tomb is well preserved and is 2m long and 1.4m wide internally. Its present floor is up to 0.4m below the surface of the surrounding mound. The entrance to the chamber, at the NE, is formed by two longitudinally set portal-stones with an intervening sill-stone. A single stone, more or less in line with the adjoining portal-stone, forms each side of the chamber. A tall stone at the SW and a lesser stone beside it mark the back of the chamber. The side-stones overlap the outer end of each. On the ground immediately outside the southern end of the western side-stone is a large wedge-shaped slab, perhaps a slipped corbel. Originally it may have rested on the side-stone. A massive capstone covers the chamber and it rests on a pad-stone on top of the back-stone and on the two portal-stones.The two portal-stones are well-matched slabs. The gap between them is 0.7m wide at their outer ends and increases to l m toward the interior. The eastern one, a more or less flat-topped stone, is 1.8m high. The western one, the top half of which slopes down toward the back of the chamber, is also 1.8m high. Both rise 1.1m above the largely flat-topped sill-stone. This stone is 0.6m high except over the easternmost one-quarter of its length, which is 0.1m lower than the rest.The eastern side-stone, the top of which is 1m below that of the adjacent portal-stone, is 0.7m high at its inner face. The western side-stone decreases in height from 1.2m at its outer end to 0.9m at its inner end. The possible slipped corbel outside the end of this measures 1.6m by 0.9m and varies from 0.1m to 0.4m wide. The small orthostat between the western side-stone and the back-stone is 1.1m high at its inner face. The back-stone, lozenge shaped in plan, is 1.3m high. The pad-stone on the back-stone measures 0.35m by 0.3m and is 0.15m wide. The portal-stones rise 0.3m above the top of the pad-stone, thus causing the roof stone to slope down from front to rear. The capstone is 4.2m in overall length. It is 3.7m wide at the front and for just over the initial one-third of its length is not less than 3.5m wide. It narrows steadily beyond this and is 1m wide at the back. It is 0.7m thick at the front, increases to a maximum of 0.9m above the portal-stones and decreases steadily beyond that to 0.3m at the back. The two supposed cup-marks on the upper surface of this stone may be natural.3 small sherds of plain Neolithic pottery picked from the floor of this chamber were acquired by the National Museum in 1958. |
| CO-ORDINATES 54 48’ 44.13”N…8 26’ 46.3”W |