Cairn L.
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A 20 minute walk west (sign posted) across the fields from the Loughcrew carpark brings you to Cairnbane West. On the way, just inside the gate, you will pass a recently erected decorated stone slab and two destroyed mounds. Cairn L, sits perched on the eastern slope of the hill, the second largest mound of the fifteen sites on this summit. The gate to enter the cairn is locked, and at the time of writing the key is not available to the public. The cairn is about 35 meters in diameter and has 41 kerbstones, several of which have fallen over, and none of which seem to be carved. As is quite common with these monuments, the kerb tends to flatten near the entrance. As you can see from the picture above, a lot of the cairn material has been removed.
Plan of Cairn L. Adapted from Jean McMann: Loughcrew, the Cairns. Cairn L is one of the more unusual chambered cairns in Ireland, having a complex plan and internal standing stone. When Conwell arrived in 1863 the roof had collapsed and the chamber was full of rubble. He estimated that the capstone probably stood 5 -6 meters above the floor of the chamber. He made a large number of finds in Cairn L, including two large stone spheres and several smaller chalk balls under the large basin in the left recess. These can be seen in the neolithic exhibit in the National Museum of Ireland.
The chamber has a 'stalled' plan with seven recesses, three at each side and one at the end. The right-back recess, as is usual with these monuments, is much larger than the others. It contains a massive stone basin and one of the finest engravings at Loughcrew. The monument was reconstructed in the 1930's or 40's by the Office of Public Works; the chamber corbels were covered by a concrete dome and the was passage re-roofed. The outer half of the passage has been replaced by modern stonework. |
Visitors to Cairn L, 1996.
