Coolkenno History

HAROLDSTOWN DOLMEN - This impressive tomb can be seen dominating the centre of a field along the banks of Deereen river in Haroldstown, just inside the Carlow border, at Acuan Bridge. Legitimately, the word 'Dolmen' is informally attached to these tomb typologies, the correct term being, a portal tomb. These tombs are invariably a structure of simple design with most examples across Ireland highlighting the prowess of megalithic or Stone Age engineering. For instance, how did people with little tools or no mathematical study of psychics emplace the near 100 tonne capstone on Brownshill Dolmen; the largest of its kind in Europe? Imagine the effort, resources and time needed to create such a tomb. Was it for a religious reason? A communal or regal reason? That is the unfortunate joys of prehistory and the secrets that such places hold from us. The chamber, beneath the large capstone are usually sub-rectangular in plan and often narrow towards the rear. At the entrance, a pair of massive portal stones are set inside the line of the side stones to help hold these massive capstones. It appears, through archaeological research, that portal tombs are orientated in an easterly direction and the excavated examples have shown evidence of cremations and pottery dating to the Neolithic period (Late Stone Age), some four to five thousand years old. Haroldstown Dolmen has never been excavated archaeologically to determine its exact date. How interesting is it that the small chamber, 'neath a large capstone, was actually a home for an impoverished family in the nineteenth century?