Kilmashogue

Kilmashogue (or Cill Mashoge in Irish) is a sacred megalithic site in Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin, Ireland on top of a mountain with the same name. The mountain is 1,339 feet (401,7 metres) high. It is a national heritage site.

It is believed the tombs date back to around 2000 B.C.

The megalithic tombs consist of massive rock slabs and it boggles the mind how they actually transported them up the mountain and lifted them into place.

It is very obvious why these prehistoric men built the tombs on the top of Kilmashouge. From the top you have a perfect view over Dublin Bay (perfect for spotting unwelcome visitors). Local streams would have provided them with fresh water and the forests near by would have had plenty of wild boar, deer and rabbit.

Clay pots and bones were some of the artefacts discovered when the tombs were excavated.

Kilmashogue is placed in thick woodland about 100 metres above a car-park on the Wicklow Way. It is a ruined Wedge-tomb with cairn. Several cists were inserted into the cairn at a later date. The roofless gallery is triple-walled, and the very high sill-stone between the antechamber and main chamber is another unusual feature in Irish Megalithic monuments. Chambered cairns are found a lot in Scotland. A Standing-stone can be found to the east of the monument on the edge of a private road. 800 meters South west of the momument the ruined "Larch Hill" Portal-tomb can be found, with remnants of a forecourt, substantial remains of its cairn, and one portal-stone standing about 3 metres tall. The other portal-stone has fallen and is lying beneath the roots of a tree. The fallen capstone is a slab around 2.4 metres square.

The cairn in Kilmashogue is robbed out and flattened. Several kerb stones remain in place as does the floor of the cairn.The surrounding ditch and bank can still clearly be seen although most have been a lot deeper. The gallery walls are still evident and these are double lined, usually a style found in wedge tombs. The entrance to the rectangular chamber faces directly towards the mound at Montpelier.

This article is licenced under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Kilmashogue".