on-misty-mountains:Proleek Portal Tomb, Legananny Dolmen and Binder’s Cove SouterrainOn our sh
on-misty-mountains:Proleek Portal Tomb, Legananny Dolmen and Binder’s Cove SouterrainOn our short trip to Northern Ireland we ended up seeing prehistoric and historic sites (as usual) and these are three of them. The first one is just South of the border in the Republic of Ireland. Proleek (’obscure’) Portal Tomb is a large structure over twice my height, which was likely built by farming communities around 3000 BC and would have had a burial mound around it. The large stones served as an entrance to the tomb. The second one is called ‘Legananny Dolmen’ and is found in County Down. It is much smaller, but also impressively held up by pointy stone pillars. ‘Dolmen’ probably comes from the Breton word ‘tolmen’, meaning ‘stone table’, which refers to the flat stone on top. Again, built by the same type of people around 2500 BC to 2000 BC. The surrounding area derives its name from this dolmen, which means ‘The Pillar Stone of Anya’. Anya is a mythological mother goddess, who the legendary warrior Finn MacCool fell in love with. Just a few miles from Legananny Dolmen is a souterrain, known as ‘Binder’s Cove’ or locally as ‘Finnis Souterarrain’. This is probably a left-over from early medieval Christian times, when people lived in ring-forts. Souterrains generally ran below or near ring-forts and were likely designed to protect people from raids with a narrow entrance, which could be easily defended. This particular one is likely from the 5th century AD. The main tunnel is 30 meters long and about 1.5 meters high (ducking is essential) with some alcoves branching off, which may occasionally have been used for storage. Northern Ireland vlog on Youtube. -- source link