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Location

Location of Aghamore Wedge Tomb in County Leitrim

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Aghamore : Wedge Tomb

County	Leitrim
Grid Ref	G 800 443
GPS	G 80048 44251 (8m)
Longitude	8° 18' 24.63" W
Latitude	54° 20' 47.32" N
ITM east	480366
ITM north	584435

Nearest Town	Manorhamilton (9.8 Km)
OS Sheet	16
UTM zone	29U
UTM x	449041.07955641
UTM y	5761192.2623701

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Visit Notes

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Sunday, 16th May 2004

This great wedge tomb was the main purpose of the climb up here. It is located amongst bumpy, peaty ground on the edge of a limestone pavement with just the roofstones rising above the level of the ground around it. The western end is in good condition, as good as you will find anywhere, with a complete fa?�ade and side stones. The gallery is fairly complete, but a chain secured around one of the roofstones shows that it is lucky to be that way: somebody obviously had a good go at dismantling it quite recently.

The box-like remains of the gallery are about 3m long x 2m wide x 1.5m tall. Extending from this to the fa?�ade stones you can just make out the stumps of the slabs that would have formed the walls of the portico/entrance section.

The outline of a wedge-shaped cairn can be made out around it, but very little of the cairn material remains. This is about 9m long (E-W) and 5m wide at the west, tapering to about 3.5m at the east. The gallery has been blocked by a drystone wall about halfway along and the slabs of the eastern end have been removed and a little enclosure built (it looks that way to me - I doubt it was built this way).

From this spot the peaks of the mountains to the south rise above the near horizon and all the dips in these peaks seem to coincide with the line of the hill. To me this seems likely to be the reason why this place was chosen. To the west are some massive swallow-holes which could also have played a part in this choice.

This is such a peaceful spot. I doubt that you'll ever be disturbed if you decide to make the journey to see this.

Wedge tombs are most easily catagorised by their main characteristic - they are taller and wider at the entrance than they are at the rear. Like court tombs they have a galleryseptal slabssill stones into smaller chambersportico at the front, which in a few specimens was split by a vertical stone place centrally in the entrance.

Like court tombs, portal tombspassage tombs they were covered by a cairn, which, at many sites, it is still often possible to determine. A few, such as Burren SW (County Cavan), still retain a large proportion of the cairn.

In wedge tombs and court tombs the burial compartment is known as a gallery and collectively wedge and court tombs are called classified as 'gallery graves'. This is because the inner area is long and narrow, i.e. bascially rectangular, in plan.

In court tombs the gallery is usually divided into two or more chambers by jambssill stones, as are a few court tombs.

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Random Gazetteer

A Random Selection of Nearby Monuments

223.6 m (ENE) there is a Cairn at Aghamore.
8.9 Km (SSW) there is a Court Tomb at Magheraghanrush (Co. Sligo).
9.3 Km (SSW) there is a Wedge Tomb at Magheraghanrush (Co. Sligo).
9.1 Km (NW) there is a Portal Tomb at Gorteen (Co. Sligo).
9.2 Km (SSW) there is a Stone Fort at Magheraghanrush (Co. Sligo).

A Selection of Other Wedge Tombs

Lackamore (Co. Tipperary)	Mountdrum (Co. Fermanagh)	Ballycroum (Co. Clare)
Knockadoo (Co. Sligo)	Marblehill South (Co. Galway)	Raffony (Co. Cavan)

Show All 190 Wedge Tombs Featured on megalithomania.com

About Coordinates Displayed

This is an explanation of (and a bit of a disclaimer for) the coordinates I provide.

Where a GPS figure is given this is the master for all other coordinates. According to my Garmin these are quite accurate.

Where there is no GPS figure the 6 figure grid reference is master for the others. This may not be very accurate as it could have come from the OS maps and could have been read by eye. Consequently, all other cordinates are going to have inaccuracies.

The calculation of Longitude and Latitude uses an algorithm that is not 100% accurate. The long/lat figures are used as a basis for calculating the UTM & ITM coordinates. Consequently, UTM & ITM coordinates are slightly out.

UTM is a global coordinate system - Universal Transverse Mercator - that is at the core of the GPS system.

ITM is the new coordinate system - Irish Transverse Mercator - that is more accurate and more GPS friendly than the Irish Grid Reference system. This will be used on the next generation of Irish OS maps.