Cultural Heritage

Archeology

Hunters and Gatherers
Man has occupied the Blackwater Valley for almost 9,000 years. The earliest evidence for human activity comes from the Early Mesolithic (middle stone-age) period during which fishermen, hunters and gatherers with no knowledge of farming settled along the Blackwater and its tributaries "to take advantage of the migratory runs of salmon and eel" (Anderson 1993). After all this time archaeologists can still find the tiny stone arrowheads, scrapers and knives they left beind at Kilcummer Lower, Wallstown and at other sites along the rivers.

Most of the evidence for the existence of a pre-farming, hunter-gatherer society in the south-west of Ireland comes from the Blackwater Valley. Indeed if evidence is ever found that man occupied Ireland before the Mesolithic period, it is likely to come from here as the valley survived the ice-sheets which scoured the surface of the rest of the country during the last glaciation, which ended around 10,000 BC.

The First Farmers
The first farmers (Neolithic or late stone-age people) arrived in this area around 4,000 BC. The landscape into which they introduced agricultural techniques was an entirely forested wilderness. Clearings soon began to appear as knowledge of farming spread and the population grew.

Labbacallee
Labbacallee is perhaps the largest of wedge-tomb in Ireland and was built over 4,000 years ago towards the end of the Stone Age and the start of the Bronze Age. Three huge capstones (the largest being 7.8 meters long and weighing 10 tonnes or more) cover the tomb and the double walls are also flanked by massive outer walling. Inside are two burial chambers, separated by a dividing slab, one corner of which has been trimmed off, perhaps to allow the spirits of the dead to come and go.

Though many tombs are associated through folklore with the lovers Diarmuid and Grania, "Labbacallee" translates as "the hag's bed". She must have been a mighty woman. While one story tells us that the large rock in the nearby river was thrown by the hag after her absconding husband, pinning him to the riverbed, another folk-tale has it that she was the wife of the druid Mogh Ruith who is reputedly buried under the cairn atop Corrin Hill. Legend has a way of reflecting long lost truths, however, and when the tomb was excavated it was indeed found to contain the remains of a woman. But while her skeleton was carefully buried in the inner chamber of the tomb, her head was found outside!

Island Wedge Tomb


Bronze age and Iron age


Pagans and the coming of christianity


Power struggles, poets and planters


The British Empire in microcosm


Military Heritage


Equestrian Heritage


Literary Heritage