Access
Car/Cycle Approaching along College Road from Dundrum/Sandyford, or Whitechurch Road from Rathfarnham, pass under the M50 at Kilmashogue Bridge. A left turn at the roundabout will take you up Kilmashogue Lane. After 1 km turn left and enter the car park.
Public Transport Unfortunately this location is not easily accessible by public transport. The most attractive option is to take Dublin Bus route 16 to the gate of Marlay Park, and follow the waymarked Wicklow Way through the park and up to the cache location. Alternatively, route 15C terminates in Whitechurch. Either way, you will have to walk around 2.5 km to the cache.
Description of the Monument
This gallery grave was built by Neolithic farmers around 4000 years ago. It went unrecorded until 1950, when the then landowner reported it to the Inspector of National Monuments. Its importance was immediately realised and the site was excavated.
Gallery graves were constructed by raising rows of upright stones and laying roof-slabs across the top to form a covered passage-way. Along the passage-way were burial chambers. In this example, the plan seems to consist of an antechamber, a large main chamber, and possibly a smaller chamber to the rear.
The whole structure was once topped with a cairn of rocks and soil, retained by a ring of kerb-stones. The cairn and roof-slabs have been plundered for building materials, leaving the uprights, gallery floor and kerb stones exposed, as well as a sill-stone at the entrance of the main chamber.
In cases such as this where the gallery is wider and taller at the entrance than at the rear, the structure is known as a "wedge tomb". This is one of 3 wedge tombs in the Barony of Rathdown, the other two being Ballyedmonduff on the east slope of Two Rock Mountain and Laughanstown adjacent to Junction 16 (Loughlinstown/Shankill) on the M50.
Characteristic features of a wedge tomb include "double-lined" or in this case "triple-lined" walls, where the side walls of the gallery consist of two or three rows of stones.
A later addition to the site was the insertion of Bronze Age burial "cists" (stone boxes) into the cairn. These are still visible, and during the excavation yielded funerary urns, bones and pottery. No artefacts or remains connected with the original Neolithic monument were found.
References
Kilbride-Jones, H.E. The excavation of an unrecorded Megalithic tomb on Kilmashogue Mountain, Co. Dublin Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Vol 56 (1953-54) 461-479
Kathleen Turner; “If You Seek Monuments - a guide to the antiquities of the Barony of Rathdown” (Rathmichael Historical Society, 1983)
