Silence in Court - Creevykeel Court Tomb

Creevykeel Court Tomb - County Sligo

Hidden behind a tall hedge on the busy Sligo to Bundoran road lies the Creevykeel Court Tomb. There, the casual visitor will find what looks like a low elongated pile of stones of varying sizes some of which have been deliberately positioned. However, there is much more to this ancient site than meets the eye.

More than 6,000 years ago, the Neolithic or New Stone Age peoples of Western Europe began to build stone monuments over their dead as tombs and ceremonial places. This was the beginning of what has become known as the megalithic tradition of the Neolithic period.

Creevykeel Court Tomb is amongst the finest examples of its type in Ireland. It dates from the Neolithic Period, 4000-2500 BC and was excavated in 1935 and then restored. The monument is located on the foothills of Tievebaun Mountain close to the sea near Mullaghmore in County Sligo. The old name for Creevykeel is Caiseal a' Bhaoisgin, the Fort of Bhaoisgin, Bhaoisgin being the well near the cairn.

The cairn measures 55 x 25 meters, with the wide edge to the east and tapers away to a tail at the west end. The actual court itself, which is enclosed by the cairn, is oval in shape measuring 15 x 9 meters. It is lined with large boulders that rest on the surface rather than sunk into the ground. The main body of the cairn was originally surrounded by a stone revetment to hold the mound together.

A narrow entrance passage, lined with large boulders and approximately 4.5 m in length, leads from the east end to the court. There is a two-chambered gallery to the north west of the court. Three smaller chambers can be seen at the western end of the monument, two on the north side and one on the south side. These are quite different to the main chamber, and are considered by some archaeologists to be small passage graves.

Court with Christian Feature top right

Large areas of the court were paved with small flat slabs while in places, cobble stones and sea sand from the nearby shore was also found. Archaeologists found evidence of large fires within this enclosed area as well as fragments of cremated bone and charcoal. The standing stones (orthostats) around the court are quite massive chunks of local sandstone. They get larger approaching the opening at the rear of the court, which gives access to an inner chamber, now roofless but which was originally covered with massive corbels, making an artificial cave.

It is unclear whether the eastern end was originally the higher as well as the broader, as is generally the case with these monuments. However, the excavation showed that the builders had used the natural slope of the ground to obtain the effect of height at this end.

Court-tombs date from the Neolithic Period and are found mainly in the northern half of the country. Most of these sites are to be found north of a line extending from Dundalk to Galway. Their most distinctive feature is the ceremonial court which is set in front of a gallery or galleries divided into two or more burial chambers.

The court usually occupies one end of a long cairn but sometimes there are courts and chambers at both ends of the cairn. In other examples, as in the case of Creevykeel, the court is completely enclosed within the cairn and is of circular or oval shape, access being gained through a short narrow passage leading to the front of the cairn.

These megalithic monuments usually had two functions: the chamber to serve as a tomb, and the courtyard to accommodate some form of ritual. Objects were often buried with the deceased, as the first Neolithic farmers believed in life after death.

Excavations at Creevykeel uncovered four cremation burials, decorated and undecorated Neolithic pottery, flint arrow heads, polished stone axes, a flint knife, stone bead, four blue glass beads, a small bronze broach and stud, part of a red deer antler handle, part of a comb and other artefacts, including a clay ball.

Over 133 stone axes alone have been discovered along the shores of Lough Gara. Stone axes are normally ascribed to both the Mesolithic and the Neolithic periods. Polished stone axes, however, seem to appear first in the Neolithic while ground axes can belong to the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age. These tools were used for cutting, shaping and dressing wood. A small polished stone axe was also found during excavation of the Drumanone Portal Tomb close to Lough Gara.

Kiln from Early Christian Period

Inside the court area archaeologists discovered a kiln dating from the Christian Period together with evidence of iron-smelting. Iron Age and early Christian metalworkers seem to have liked working in ancient sites including crannogs. Such ancient sites may, perhaps, have held magical properties in relation to metalwork.

Archaeologists excavating a crannog at Lough Gara in the townland of Sroove found a small bowl-shaped depression that may represent the shape of a small bowl-furnace for iron-smelting. Nearby, was found remains of slag, some pieces of which had the red clay remains of the furnace attached to them. 

Creevykeel Court Tomb remains one of the best examples of its type in Ireland and is well worth a visit if you happen to be in that part of North Sligo which has a rich megalithic tradition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMHpRK4b7Rg

Lough Gara and Ireland's Mesolithic Period

Lough Gara Lake

Archaeologists can tell us a great deal about the Irish Neolithic period or New Stone Age and subsequent times such as the Bronze and Iron Ages as well as medieval times. There is evidence of the past all around us in the form of cairns, portal tombs, boulder burials, standing stones, crannogs and, of course, the ubiquitous ring forts. Much less, however, is known about the Mesolithic Period or Middle Stone Age. What was life like for those early settlers living around Lough Gara and similar lakes in the West of Ireland?

It has been suggested that these early people moved from the sea to the lakes and inland in a seasonal cycle. The winters were spent hunting wild pig in the forests, while in the spring people moved to the sea to collect oysters. At the beginning of summer they followed the fish like salmon and eel upriver.

The land which now comprises the island of Ireland came about following the collision of two continents about 430 million years ago. The formation of Ireland in its present shape only occurred 12,000 – 10,000 years ago. There is some evidence that animals such as bear, woolly mammoth, red deer, giant Irish deer, horse, and wolf roamed Ireland around 40,000 to 20,000 years ago. The remains of mammoths have been discovered near Crumlin, Co. Antrim that date from over 40,000 years ago. The next 7,000 years (18,000 -11,000 BC) was probably the height of the glacial period (Mallory, 2013).

By 12,000 BC the climate in Ireland had become increasingly warmer and the ice sheets were melting. These conditions allowed the gradual spread of trees and other plants northwards into Britain and Ireland. Because of the lack of large areas of grasslands, mammals and other animals became extinct. By 8000 BC Ireland was separated from Britain. This helps to explain why Ireland has a poorer range of native plants and animals and appears to have been settled by people much later.

Mallory points out that there is no evidence that people settled in Ireland earlier than 10,000 years ago. The Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age lasted for about 4,000 years and is divided into two periods: Earlier Mesolithic c 8,000 – 6,500 BC and Later Mesolithic 6,500 – 4,000 BC.

Flint Implements

More evidence of life during the Mesolithic Period is gradually coming to light with around twenty important sites identified around Ireland.  Early Mesolithic communities are characterised by the use of flint cores, flakes, and ground and polished axes. The Later Mesolithic Period saw a shift to the use of larger stone implements and the continued use of stone axes.

Mount Sandel, near Coleraine, Co. Derry, is the oldest Mesolithic site in Ireland and dates from about 8000 BC. Archaeologists discovered traces of a series of huts that had been re-built from one occupation to the next. These early houses had been built using bent rods or poles and measured six metres in diameter with a hearth located in the centre.

Building a Replica Mesolithic Hut - Mount Sandel

Recently, archaeologists discovered the remains of two individuals in Killuragh Cave, Co. Limerick. Bones from this site have been dated to c 7,200 – 6,500 BC. At Castleconnell, Co. Limerick, the cremated remains of a complete adult were found, accompanied by a polished stone axe and two microliths or small flint blades. The grave appeared to have been marked by an upright post. This burial was dated to c 7,550 – 7,300 BC. 

The survey of Lough Gara by Christina Fredengren and a radiocarbon-dating programme, together with the artefacts, have shown that this lake was heavily used during the Mesolithic Period.  One of the posts found in this lake produced a radiocarbon date of 4230–3970 BC, indicating activity in the latest phases of the Mesolithic. A piece of brushwood from the same area was dated to the early Mesolithic, showing that there was human activity on the lake around 7330-7050 BC (Fredengren, 2002).

Where did the first Irish settlers come from? Scholars believe that the most likely ‘homelands’ of the earliest human colonists in Ireland are Scotland, Isle of Man and Wales.

Lough Gara

Most Mesolithic artefacts have been found in or near water, just as at Lough Gara. Mesolithic material has been recovered from other nearby lakes such as: Lough Allen, Co. Leitrim, and Urlaur, Co. Mayo. These two lakes are connected to Lough Gara via the river system.

The Lough Gara collection of stone axes is the largest Mesolithic assemblage in the West of Ireland. It is likely that the waters, and especially the running waters of the river, were seen as places where depositions of suitable objects could be made.

Killian Driscoll (2014) points out that evidence for the Mesolithic Period in the West of Ireland has gone largely unrecognised. In areas such as Lough Gara and Lough Allan, the extent of the evidence has been overlooked. Where lakes have been drained, much evidence can be found, but this creates a bias against areas away from the shores as well as from lake where no drainage has taken place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YXXdqCAn38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O22LMgS4V4

Christina Fredengren (2002) Crannogs: A study of people's interaction with lakes, with particular reference to Lough Gara in the north-west of Ireland
J.P.Mallory (2013) The Origins of the Irish

Driscoll, K., Menuge, J., and O'Keeffe, E. (2014). New materials, traditional practices: a Mesolithic silicified dolomite toolkit from Lough Allen, Ireland. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol. 114C pp. 1-34.