Creevykeel Court Tomb

Creevykeel Court Tomb is one of the finest examples of a court tomb remaining in Ireland. The monument is located in the N15 Donegal to Sligo road, 50 meters north of Creevykeel cross-roads close to Cliffoney village in County Sligo.

The building of the tomb dates back to the Neolithic Period, 4000-2500 BC, when waves of colonising farmers migrated to Ireland from the continent. The Creevykeel Court Tomb is one of five megalithic monuments in the area. Creevykeel has not been dated using modern scientific methods, and is estimated to date from about 3,500 BC with a long span of use and re-use.

The monument consists of a long, trapezoid-shaped cairn of stones which measures 55.5 meters along its east - west axis, 25 meters at the wider eastern facade, and 10 meters wide at the western end or tail of the cairn. The stones used to construct the monument are a hard local sandstone with a bluish tint.

The cairn encloses an oval-shaped full court 15 by 9 meters with an entrance passage through the east side. The entrance to the main chamber is located at the centre of an imposing megalithic facade on the west side of the court. The chamber is made up of two large compartments divided by a pair of jambs which presumably supported an inner lintel like those at Shawley and Croaghbeg in County Donegal.

Evidence of large corbel slabs used for roofing the structure survives in the inner chamber. In the west end of cairn three subsidiary chambers were built into the body of the monument, which have been described as being small passage-graves. However they seem to date from a later neolithic addition to the original monument.

References:

• Wikipedia

Address

Cliffoney, Ireland

Details

Founded: 4000-2500 BCE
Category: Prehistoric and archaeological sites in Ireland