Neolithic Monuments

There are thousands of stone circles, cairns, standing stones, graves, and other remains of Stone Age life in Ireland. It's nearly impossible to walk through a field without finding something.

While I am interested in the larger neolithic sites,I tend to gravitate towards medieval architecture, so we didn't target stone circles or other ancient sites. We found the round stone forts that pock the farmland very interseting, and of course, Newgrange/Knowth/Dowth is a must-see. There is so much supposition regarding the meaning of these monuments, their purpose and importance, that it is hard fo rme to connect with them. Why did neolithic peoples move stones hundreds of miles to build these huge mounds? Did the portal tombs originally ahve a covering of grass and dirt?

Some pages from people who are far more knowledgeable about these sites than I am are in the links section at left.

We visited the following sites:

dun angus • ardkearagh • cahergall • cahernaughton • caherdaniel • drombeg stone circle
dunbeg • knowth • newgrange • poulnabrone • staigue fort • wedge tomb • carrick-a-rede fort

a small stone fort near the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge