As with every aspect of Poulnabrone, however - and the other dolmens - this is purely speculation. Perhaps the monument was designed with the downward sloping back angle as a kind of one-way sign for unseen spirits. If defence was needed, it was against hostile spirits from the Otherworld" (14). Historian Jonathan Bardon comments on this, writing, "It is clear that they were not constructed for military purposes as the ditch in each of the locations was placed inside rather than outside the great circular earthen enclosures. This same sort of construction can be seen elsewhere at similar sites in Ireland, such as the Hill of Tara in County Meath. 2700 BCE and consisting of a wide basin surrounded by an earthwork. The Giant's Ring, a sacred site in Ballynaratty, near Belfast, is a henge monument dating from c. The Morrigan and other deities, spirits, faieries, and sprites were greatly feared, and defences were built against them at sacred sites throughout Ireland. The Morrigan was at once beautiful and terrifying, taking souls from the battlefield and carrying them away like the Norse Valkyrie or appearing at the moment of death by the hearth or in the field to wrench the soul from the body. Of course, they do have the dolmen roped off at a discreet circumference to protect it from us and, I assume, us from becoming accidental Nebraskans.Celtic deities were closely tied to the land, and this was especially so of the Morrigan, the phantom queen associated with war, death, and regeneration/rebirth. Probably none more accessible, either, since it has its own parking lot. None is more famous than Poulnabrone, though. In fact, there are scores of them on the Burren itself, maybe even up to a hundred. These pi/table/doorway-shaped dolmens occur all over Ireland, Europe, and the world. Apparently, nobody wants to even possibly end up in Nobpot. This is, of course, just a rumor since nobody’ll actually test the idea. Also, I’ve heard, because if you walk through them, you’ll be transported to Nobpot, Nebraska. The pi-shaped nature of many of these dolmens also wins them the name portal tombs since they look like doorways. Rain and other water sources wore down the rocks like cola on a tooth until it achieved weird fragmented shapes, in this case grikes and clints, which are basically nooks and crannies.įor you see, standing lonely in the small national park area of the Burren (except for the crowds of tourists surrounding it, of course) is the Poulnabrone Dolmen.ĭolmens are the stone remains of ancient mound tombs, where all the dirt has worn away, leaving only its table-like infrastructure. In many cases, and in the case of the Burren, that rock is limestone. The Burren, which basically means “rocky” (although some translate it as “Rocky IV”), is a 100-square-mile karst landscape, meaning that its topography is made up of partially dissolved rock. I’ll start with the Burren to put off having to make sure I spell the other one correctly every time I use it. Actually, we’re dealing with two Irish oddities, the Poulnabrone Dolmen, a megalithic tomb in County Clare, and the Burren, which is the landscape where the dolmen sits. It’s just about Irish oddity, so there’s going to be some Celtic-fu being thrown around here, plus we’re dealing with a landscape unique enough that it gets its own vocabulary. Ma– Across the grikes and clints of the karst region in Eire known as the Burren stands the Poulnabrone Dolmen.
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