Up on the Burren

In the north west corner of County Clare a harsh barren landscape of exposed limestone pavement dominates the region. The hills and plateaus formed 325 million years ago have been difficult for human habitation and for animals to graze on, but traces have been left of an occupying culture some 5000 years ago. Some of these traces are in the form of burial chambers with some of them very challenging to get to.

A quiet road up from Ballyallaban levels off onto an eerie treeless plateau. Then suddenly a busy car park appears on the left hand side with people spilling out of coaches and minibuses. They had come to see one of Ireland's more famous Neolithic sites, the portal tomb of Poulnabrone. A winding path leads up to an area of flat pavement where the large but elegant dolmen stands six feet tall, made up of four slender uprights supporting a sleek flat roofstone twelve by nine feet. As with the building stone on Inishmore the limestone slabs were lifted and shaped very nearby and now stand wedged between the pavement. Lying on the ground only a few feet away on the south west side is a large upright now redundant.

The dolmen is now roped off enabling an array of wild flowers to grow around it's base. A warden from OWP was on hand and explained it was now a necessary measure to prevent further damage from people climbing on it and lighting fires inside it. He said it had given the tomb back the respect it deserved. Repairs to cracks had been undertaken after excavation work where the bones of thirty five individuals had been found along with pottery sherds, body adornments and stone tools, including a polished stone axe head.

I had to agree with the warden, this was a resting place for the dead after all and maybe more dolmens should be considered in this way.