The Burren is an area that has always captivated my imagination, seeing as how the landscape can be so harsh, gloomy and grey on one hand, but on the other sustains massive biodiversity, is dazzling when the sun shines, and has a wealth of national monuments. The small townland of Parknabinnia is only 1.4km² (362acres or 0.57miles²) but is home to 45 heritage sites according to the National Monuments Service database. To give an idea of the staggering amount of monuments I feel it necessary to list that in Parknabinnia there are the remains of ten wedge tombs, ten enclosures, five cairns, one court tomb, one passage tomb, one bronze age house, and one medieval house to name just a few. Evidently it is not surprising that there is also the remains of two quarries at Parknabinnia.
The only study I can find of this particular wedge tomb (numbered as CL017-180012) comes from a ‘Survey of Megalithic Tombs’ carried out by Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin in 1961. They describe the tomb as being ‘well preserved’ which it certainly is, the chamber sides on the north and south are made up of two single stones, the north one measuring 4.1 metres, and the south side measuring 3.1metres. One of the more unusual aspects of this tomb is that at its north end a slab transverses beyond the sidestone by almost half a metre. The roofstone was originally one piece of rock which over time has split into two, one measuring 2.6 by 2.4 metres and the second 1.4 by 1.3 metres. The tomb is surrounded on all sides by a ‘grass-grown mound of stone’ about one metre in height which surrounds the site, from east to west it is 12 metres and north to south at 9.5 metres. Two later stone walls also run into the edge of this mound. As far as I am aware the site has never been excavated.
It should be noted that this is a different tomb than the main signposted one at Parknabinnia, which was previously featured on this site and can be found here https://visionsofthepastblog.com/2016/10/29/parknabinnia-wedge-tomb-clare-ireland/
GPS: 52.98569, -9.10238