Wakeman's handbook of Irish antiquities

by W. F. Wakeman

It is now admitted by all competent authorities that the works scattered throughout Ireland, varying from the rude structures known as cromlechs and the gigantic chambered cairns, like those of Newgrange and Dowth, down to the simplest cist, alike varieties of the cromlech idea, are graves of a primitive people. But we may go a step further than this. It is perfectly evident that the people who erected the cromlechs and tumuli were far more solicitous about the abodes of the dead than they were regarding their own dwellings, built as these were of wood and wattles, covered with turf and earth, and subject to ready decay. ‘On the other hand,’ as Dr. Munro well says, ‘the tomb was constructed of the most durable materials, and placed on an eminence, so as to be seen from afar, and to be a lasting memorial among succeeding generations.’[25]

Towards the close of the Stone Age the custom of burning the bodies of the dead was practised by the inhabitants of the British Isles. The dead were also disposed of by ordinary burial, by placing the body in either a horizontal, sitting, or perpendicular position. Both methods were practised throughout the whole succeeding archæological period, or Bronze Age, as numerous remains testify. When cremated, the calcined remains were placed in an urn, and then deposited, often with a small food-vessel, within an artificial chamber. This is called a Cist, or Kistvaen, and is usually a small rectangular chamber made of flags or rude stones. Over these chambers it was often customary to raise a cairn of stones or earthen mound. The cist has, however, been frequently found in open fields and other unexpected places. Cinerary urns, too, have been found within an area of stone circles, in tumuli not many feet from the surface, and in mounds that in their centre contained other, and probably more ancient, burial deposits.

In case of interment the grave was sometimes formed of flags, often of considerable size, placed edgeways, and enclosing a space, covered with stones, barely sufficient to contain the body, and over which a cairn or mound was raised. The body was also deposited in a chamber formed of large rude stones, often found standing free; but sometimes the chamber was covered by a mound or cairn, and was accessible by a passage from without. To the uncovered remains of these burial structures the name Cromlech is generally applied. The cairn or mound was often surrounded by a circle of stones, and traces of this still exist in some of the sepulchral monuments. Sometimes the space in which the remains of several bodies have been found is barely sufficient for one body, and it is supposed that they were broken before interment. Cremated remains are often found with the remains of an interred body; and this may have been the result of human sacrifices offered to the manes of the dead.

An interesting account of burial in an upright position is referred to in the Book of Armagh, where King Laoghaire is represented as telling St. Patrick that his father Niall used to exhort him never to believe in Christianity, but to retain the ancient religion of his ancestors, and to be interred in the Hill of Tara, like a man standing up in battle, with his face turned to the south, as if bidding defiance to the men of Leinster.

‘Cremations and bodily interments,’ says Colonel Wood-Martin, ‘have been found intermixed in a manner to lead to the belief that both forms of burial prevailed contemporaneously. Urns to contain the ashes of the dead were, possibly, used as a special mark of honour; also, perhaps, to facilitate the conveyance of the human remains from a distance to the chosen place of interment. In a country wherein were thick woods and long stretches of bog to be traversed, the passage of funeral processions must have been attended with delays and difficulties.’

The ordinary Cromlech, when perfect, or nearly so, consists of three or more stones, unhewn, and generally so arranged as to form a small enclosure. Over these a large and usually thick stone is placed, the whole forming a kind of vault or rude chamber. It is generally rude in appearance, the stones often consisting of mere amorphous blocks. In Clare, where the limestone is found more or less in a laminated form, the cromlech becomes more symmetrical, and is often very perfect in shape.

The cromlech is usually styled ‘Dolmen’ by English and Continental writers. Our peasantry, however, as a rule, call them ‘Giants’ Graves,’ or not unfrequently, when retailing a tradition and speaking in Irish, ‘Leaba Diarmida agus Graine,’ or the Beds of Dermot and Graine, from two historical personages who, according to an old legend, eloped together, and flying through the country for a year and a day, erected these ‘beds’ wherever they rested for a night. Graine, or Grace, was the betrothed wife of Fin Mac Coul, and daughter of King Cormac Mac Art, who lived about the middle of the third century A.D.; her lover was Diarmid O’Duibhne, of whom several stories are still current. According to this legend there should be just 366 cromlechs, or ‘beds,’ in Ireland. But mythical as the story is, it is nevertheless of some interest, as it connects the monuments with pre-Christian events. In parts of the north and west of the country they are sometimes styled ‘griddles.’

The true Chamber Monument is an extended form of the cromlech, and differs from it in that the roof is formed by a succession of overlapping slabs resting on the stones forming the walls, and gradually rising from the lower end. The top cap-stone, while resting on the uprights, not only closes the chamber, but by its weight keeps in position the overlapping stones which help to support it.

In some cases the covering stone of the cromlech seems to have slipped from its original position, and will be found with one end or side resting upon the ground. Du Noyer was of opinion, shared by the late Mr. Borlase, that this was originally the case in some examples, the builders having failed in their efforts to raise the ponderous table or covering stone, or to procure suitable supports. The position of the upper stone, or roof, is usually sloping; but its degree of inclination does not seem to have been regulated by any intention or design. This general disposition of the ‘table’ has been largely seized upon by advocates of the ‘Druids’ Altar’ theory, as a proof of the soundness of their opinion that these monuments were erected by the Druids for the purpose of human sacrifice. Some, indeed, have gone so far as to discover in the hollows worn by the rains and storms of centuries on the upper surface of these stones, channels artificially excavated, for the purpose of facilitating the passage of a victim’s blood earthwards!

The question whether the cromlech was originally covered by a cairn or mound has been the subject of much discussion, but its full consideration is outside the limits of this work. The great majority of existing cromlechs in Ireland are, now at least, of the free-standing order. Of these some, from the nature of their position and structure, could never have been the centres of tumuli. Others, no doubt, were covered; but, in the case of most, time has so altered their condition that it is now difficult to determine how they really stood in their original and finished state.[26] A little consideration will show that, as the cromlech and covered chamber belong to the same general class of sepulchral monuments, it was intended by the original builders that access should be had to them from without. Mr. Borlase, agreeing with Fergusson, is ‘inclined to regard the dolmens as no mere tombs intended to be closed for ever, but as sacred shrines in which the spirits of the dead were worshipped, and which were constructed with a view of being accessible to devotees.’[27] The remains deposited within had to be protected from the severity of the weather and the intrusion of wild animals. In the case of the uncovered cromlech all intervening spaces would be closed up with smaller stones and earth, and the walls banked up to the edge of the cap-stone. Mr. Borlase advances the theory that the cromlech, hitherto technically so-called, is the more megalithic portion of the giant’s grave, and ‘that both types, despite the difference in their appearance in the condition in which we now find them, belong to one and the same class of dolmen, originally of elongated form.’[28] He supports this by pointing out that the ‘giant’s grave’ is a long, wedge-shaped structure, rising gradually from a lower to a higher end, the latter having the heavier supports and larger covering stone. These would be the more difficult to destroy, for, in the long lapse of time, as stones were required for building or other purposes, the smaller and lighter would be carried away. How far this may be the case we cannot here consider; but some cromlechs, such as those raised of great boulder rocks, could never have been of the extended order of structure.