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Seefin

Some Passage Tombs on Mountain Summits by Tom Barragry

Seefin

The megalithic passage tomb of Seefin is situated on the summit of a 622 m high mountain in North Wicklow. Nearby on the other summits - Seahan and Seefingan - and in clear view, are other cairns covering similar types of passage tombs. Seefin in fact is one of the four hills in the so called ‘Circuit of Kilbride’, taking in Seahan (648m), Corrig (618m), Seefingan (724m) and Seefin (622m). Corrig can be described as the poor relation of all of these summits as it is the only one without a passage tomb but it does command wonderful views over to Seefingan and Seefin and great views down over to Glenasmole. Glenasmole to the east, was a favourite hunting ground of the Fianna and Fionn McCumhaill’s Stone in Glenasmole was said to have been carried down from Corrig by Fionn himself.

Kilbride Rifle Range is an Army range on the /Wicklow border and it is nestled in a valley surrounded by Seefin, Seahan, Corrig and Seefingan. It has been claimed that on a clear day can be seen from Seefin and that Seefin was deliberately built to be seen from Newgrange.

Seefin is approximately halfway between the Sally Gap and Manor Kilbride.The military rifle range at Kilbride lies to the north and care needs to be taken in reaching. MountainViews.ie shows various safe ways.

In Gaelic Mythology

Seefin or Sui Fionn, according to Gaelic mythology and Celtic legends, was the seat of Finn McCool (Fionn mac Cumhail) while Seefingin ( Sui Finnin) was the seat of his son Oisin. Fionn or Finn was the leading Irish warrior of Na Fianna who were his followers and who were the leading Gaelic tribe. The Fianna, led by Fionn, were known in all the early Irish mythological stories as great athletes, hunters, and especially, fighters. They were men living in the wilderness, outside the bounds of normal society, in close contact with the natural world, and by extension, with the spirit world. In 1858 the revolutionary Irish independence group known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) took on the name of “Fenians” a name derived from Fionn’s army

Many legends surround the life of Fionn. It is said that he attempted his own matchmaking by inviting large numbers of women to partake in a race up to the summit of Slieve na Mban in Tippreary, where he awaited the winner.

Allegedly Grainne was first up the mountain of Slieve na Mban, but because Fionn was much older than her, she eloped with his better looking, younger warrior Diarmaid. It is also said that Fionn built the Giant's Causeway as stepping stones to , and that the Isle of Man is a lump of Irish land which he hurled at an enemy !. As members of na Fianna, Fionn and his son Oisin roamed these hills around Seefin,until Oisin went with Niamh Cinn Oir over the sea to Tir na Nog. Oisin returned years later to Gleann na Smole. (It is thought that Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde story has its roots in this legend of Diarmuid agus Grainne althugh there are many other early European versions on the same theme).

The on Seefin

Approaching the summit of Seefin from the southerly direction, the huge cairn of large stones is readily visible and impressive to behold, but as one circles around it to the northside, the entrance pillars and lintel come into view showing the narrow passage entrance.

Seefin passage tomb is well preserved and is most impressive sitting on the high summit with a magnificent view, as far as the eye can see, of the low lying countryside below it..

Seefin megalithic tomb dates back to 3000- 5000 years BC and was only first investigated by RA McAllister in 1931. When he investigated it he recorded that he found no human remains there, neither artifacts nor other items of interest within the chamber. Accordingly it has always been speculated as to whether some early human remains had actually been removed from the tomb hundreds if not thousands of years ago, or whether the tomb is some kind of mysterious empty spectacular symbolic marker at the summit of a splendid panorama. It is certainly a very elaborate and precisely constructed tomb and it is indeed hard to believe that no one was ever buried there. So did Mc Alister miss something, had remains been removed hundreds of years earlier or was no one ever buried there? It seems more likely that it was a burial tomb ..... it had after all remained open for thousands of years and thus the remains of deceased persons could easily have be removed, or perhaps some artifacts stolen over that long time span.. One of the early roof stones had an etching of a Greek equal-armed cross cross and this would seem to corroborate the supposition that it was a burial place. Many such mysterious tombs on mountain summits exist all over Ireland, many in very close proximity to each other. They all seem to maintain some sort of geographical alignment, if not with each other, then more probably with astronomical events such as the solstice and equinox. Many of these passage tombs from Newgrange, Knowth , Seefin Seefingin, Seahan Fairy Castle, etc remain as enigmatic reminders of the rituals and practices in stone age Ireland - many of which we may never come to fully understand in true, authentic and accurate detail..

While the pyramids of Giza were built as spectacular tombs for kings and pharoahs, it would seem that the Irish passage tombs were more for some sort of communal activity. It would also seem that given the small space inside and the narrow entrance passage only a few people could enter to perform the final rituals, with most of the people remaining outside.

Given that Seefin is 1700 feet above sea level it was an astounding feat of labour and of engineering to carry the heavy materials up to the summit and construct with considerable precision such an elaborate edifice, some 3000 or even 5000 years ago. And an edifice that has survived over 3000 years without collapsing!. Perhaps the materials were not carried up insofar as there may have been an abundant supply of stone on the tops of these hills anyway. So why was it built and what purpose did it serve? One theory was that by placing the remains of one’s ancestors in these high cairns, immediate ownership was conferred on their descendants, of all the land that their deceased ancestors could see from their resting place on the summit.

Seefin tomb entrance. A test for modern man of slimness.

The entrance to the tomb itself is narrow with two large columnar side stones supporting a lintel. There are two stones at the entrance allegedly displaying some very faint concentric megalithic decoration, but it is extremely hard to see it now. The entrance consists of a very narrow 7 metres long passage way with large side slabs that runs inwards into 5 smaller cellular compartments. The largest central chamber (burial chamber?) has two small side chambers on each side and one situated at the rear. Overall, the covering stony cairn of the passage tomb is 24 metres in diameter and a little over 3 metres high.There are a number of kerbstones around the base defining the outer periphery. From a small collapsed part of the roof one an get a small narrow peep into the passageway.

At the summit there is a wonderful 360 degree vista showing the whole of south , Kildare and a vast expanse of Wicklow.

Seefingan

Nearby Seefingan is the twin peak that is also crowned by a cairn of stones similar to Seefin. But while a little less dramatic, Seefingan is yet unexcavated. It lies a litle higher than Seefin by about 100m above sea level. Looking down from either of these summits the panorama is truly breathtaking with an uninterrupted view of the beautiful rolling hills, fields and a few lakes into the far distance. The surrounding countryside encompasses North & West Wicklow, , and the passage tombs well visible on the distant summits. Of course care must be taken in this area as it lies adjacent to an active army firing range at Kilbride. This is a danger zone which is marked by red flags on active days. The views from Seefin are as good as you get. It's just stunning to look down upon the Poulaphuca Reservoir 450m below or across to Seefingan (and its passage tomb) Seahan Hill (County Dublin) and its passage tomb (Seefin passage is facing directly at this one) or over to Sorrel Hill & Lugnagun ().

Fairy Castle

Not too far away on the Dublin Mountains lies Fairy Castle. This stone cairn is a collapsed passage tomb. It sits at an altitude of 1,740 feet (536m) beside a trig pillar on Mountain and is a major high landmark well visible from most parts of south county Dublin. The mountain takes its name from the two granite tors that lie to the south-east of the summit. The tomb is marked by the large collection of rocks forming a type of pyramid. The tomb underneath is believed to have had a height of about 3 metres and some of the original circle of stones are thought to still be in position. It dates to the Bronze Age between c.2500 bce and 2000 bce and is one of the highest, largest and easternmost in a series of such tombs that stretch across the Wicklow & Dublin Mountains. The large structure is 25m (82 feet) in circumference and the mound is 2m (6.6 ft) high made up of granite and quartz blocks. Much of it It is now covered by turf and vegetation and a boardwalk surrounds it. There is no evidence that the tomb has ever been opened but archaeologists believe that the interior contains a small burial chamber. From the summit of Fairy Castle there are extensive views taking in 6 counties (Wicklow, Dublin, Louth, Meath, Kildare and Down), and 3 countries (Ireland, and Wales). The entrance to the tomb once described as "The Cave" has also disappeared under the peat bog.

The open circular burial chamber Tibradden Hill

Tibradden Hill is home to a prehistoric chambered cairn that formerly was thought to be a passage tomb. The tomb at Tibradden looks like the remains of a passage tomb but in fact it is not. The visible remains consist of a passageway 5 metres in length opening into an open circular chamber. The open cairn measures 25 metres in diameter and is about a metre and a half high. On the open floor is an inscribed stone with spiral .

The passage into the cairn and the chamber that are visible today, were first excavated in 1849 by members of the Royal Irish Academy. During this excavation two bronze age cist burials were found containing pottery and cremated remains.

Megalithic spiral art on floor of chamber The main burial consisted of a food-vessel and cremated bones. It is now believed that the monument is a chambered cairn with a cist burial at the centre. The site may well be the burial place of Bródáin, after whom the mountain is named (Sliabh Thigh Bródáin’ meaning ‘mountain of the house of Bródáin’.) The monument is not at the summit of the mountain but is located slightly to the north at a position where the view across Dublin Bay to is not obscured by Two Rock. When one stands within the open cairn chamber a beautiful and relatively well preserved piece of spiral can be seen on the floor

The cairn itself is mainly intact rising s to a maximum of 1-2 m above ground level and is about 25m in diameter. The passage appears to have a very close summer solstice alignment. Conservation work done at the site in 1956 revealed that the chamber and passage were not in fact completely the original features but had possibly been created at the time of the original excavation sometime in the nineteenth century. The walls of the chamber rise to about 1.5m and offer a very welcome shelter from the howling winds that often whip up on the open expanse of . A good place for a sandwich! The site became a national monument in 1940.

The ring dyke to the north of Slieve Gullion

Slieve Gullion

Volcanic Origins.

The broad slopes of Slieve Gullion dominate the landscape of south , and the mountain itself lies at the centre of a pronounced ring of hills – the . Both Slieve Gullion and the Ring of Gullion are testament to a much more violent early past in this region of Ireland, for they are both of volcanic origin. Both the mountain and its surrounding ring of hills are the remains of a volcano, now much eroded, that existed here over 60 million years ago.

Volcanoes are often surrounded by an encirclement of geological faults and fractures. These result from hot boiling or moltrn rock hitting the surface at at several points resulting in explosive eruptions and laval deposits which give rise to the resulting landscape features. Sixty million years ago, Ireland's share of molten lava roared and spewed out of volcanoes and entered a cooling down/ settling process in the surrounding area. In some places however the deposited lava remained bubbling up in small aggregates which following interaction with local geological faults and fractures remained as plasmal protrusions above the surface. The townland around Slieve Gullion & was the the epicentre of powerful volcanic activity, and Slieve Gullion is in fact the eroded heart of a volcano that was active in this area in South Co Armagh. This volcanic phenomenon resulted in the formation of a central mountain, Slieve Gullion, surrounded by a ring of smaller laval deposts and mountain formations.. This Ring of Gullion is called a “ring dyke system”. It is in fact an extinct central volcano with peripheral deposits and is the most spectacular example of a ring dyke to be seen anywhere in Ireland or Britain. Slieve Gullion’s ring dyke is 11 km in diameter.

The area in general was a major site of volcanic activity and volcanoes also erupted in the south of this landscape around Forkill. It is also believed that much of the stone dates back 390 million years! The volcano is linked to a time when the continents of Europe and America were joined together and began to move apart, creating the Atlantic Ocean and islands of Northern Europe. Early glaciation has also left its mark on the Gullion area and the landscape has been shaped also not only by the volcanoes but also by the action of glaciers during successive Ice Ages. Glaciers exploited existing volcanic weaknesses in the rocks and eroded deep valleys through the Ring of Gullion. The lake in the Ring of Gullion is a good example of a glacial ribbon lake.

Early Mythology

Slieve Gullion is especially notable in Gaelic mythology, where it is associated with the many legends surrounding the early Irish heroes Fionn mac Cumhaill and Cú Chulainn. Slieve Gullion is said to be the exact place where the legendary hero Cú Chulainn (Cuhullin) first received his name and where he spent his childhood (Sliabh Cuilinn, "Culann's mountain")

The mountain also features in many legends playing host to witches, heroes and fleeing saints. It is the land of Táin Bó Cuailgne, Queen , The Fianna, Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the old witch Calliagh Berra.

The summit ridge leads down to Calliagh Berra's Lough (“Hags’s lake”/ “the lake of the curse”). She was the enchantress who lured Fionn into the lake to search for her ring. When he emerged from the lake, she had disappeared, but Fionn was a wizened white haired old man.. His friends dug into the cairn on Slieve Gullion to find the Calliagh Berra, the witch who caused the enchantment. She restored Fionn, but his former head of red hair remained white. This is said to be the origin of his name, Fionn, meaning fair or 'white'.

Furher across in the ring of Gullion lies Camlough Lake which was formed as a glacial ribbon lake,.The glacial left-over sits in a valley carved between Slieve Gullion and Camlough Mountain and is today the largest lake in the Ring of Gullion

The Mountain and Passage Tomb

The mountain itself is at the heart of the Ring of Gullion and is the highest point in the county, with an elevation of 573 metres (1,880ft). Slieve Gullion Forest Park is on its eastern slope At the plateau summit of Slieve Gullion is a small lake and two ancient burial cairns, one of which is the highest surviving passage grave in Ireland.

The Passage Tomb of Slieve Gullion is situated on the summit of the southern end of the mountain ridge. As the the highest passage tomb in Ulster it commands breathtaking views over the surrounding countryside. The spectacular tomb consists of a large circular cairn some 30m in diameter and up to 5m high, with a supporting kerb of massive, but undecorated, stones around the perimeter. On the south-west face of the summit cairn is the entrance to a short, lintelled, passage which leads to the octagonal chamber.

A.E.P Collins in 1963 states:-

“ The passage tomb follows the normal rule of siting on a local summit. The cairn diameter of 97 ft. lies well within the range from 280 ft. at Dowth to 33 ft. at Loughcrew V. The cairn height of 16 ft. is rather low : But expressed as a ratio of its diameter it is as 1:6, the same as at New Grange” !!

The earliest literary reference to the passage-grave cairn is contained in the Harris Manuscripts of 1739. This is of interest in calling attention to a kind of 'porch' outside the entrance to the passage. The first investigation of Slieve Gullion Passage Tomb dates to 1789,( described by Charlotte Brooke in Reliques of Irish Poetry, 1789, 70-1) and records the entry of local peasants (so-called) into the chamber with the discovery of 'only a few human bones' inside. Fairly extensive clearance of stones and other debris from the chamber in 1906 was carried out by the Archaeological Society.

Hags Lake /Calliagh Berra's Lough on Slieve Gullion Summit

Further excavation in 1961 revealed that the chamber had previously been enetered, if not ransacked, on a number of occasions, and the only notable finds in 1961 were a few pieces of flint, a scraper and an arrowhead. Three stone basins were also found with shallow depressions hammered into their natural shapes. Radiocarbon dating from the tomb's excavation suggested its construction dated from c. 3500-2900 BC. During these excavations a round cairn, not a passage tomb, on the northern end of the summit ridge was investigated, revealing two small stone-built coffin-like boxes (cists) used to hold the bodies of the dead, together with some fragments of distinctive Early Bronze Age pottery. This smaller cairn, to the north of the Hag’s Lake, is of later, perhaps Bronze Age construction. Two hundred years after the passage tomb at the summit of Slieve Gullion was ransacked by treasure-seekers, the cairn was further disturbed by American soldiers training there during the Second World War. Foxholes were dug into the passage tomb and into the smaller cairn at the north end of the lake.

Like all passage tombs questions arise over the mystery of their alignment. Like at the larger Dowth Passage Tomb in the Boyne Valley, the setting sun around the time of the Winter Solstice illuminates the chamber of the passage tomb on Slieve Gullion. Thus the entrance to the tomb is flooded with the evening light of the winter solstice. Also of interest is its relationship to the cairns at Loughcrew in west Co Meath. The cairns at Loughcrew face towards Newgrange, and Slieve Gullion appears to be aligned with Loughcrew thus indicating some intended connection between the three.

Winter Solstice rays of evening light from the setting sun entering the passage of the cairn on Slieve Gullion.

Extract from The Slieve Gullion Cairns (1963) by A. E. P. Collins and B. C. S. Wilson :-

“Slieve Gullion has long been famed for the large passage-grave cairn sited on its southern summit. Although damaged, enough is preserved of both passage and chamber for it to be clear that both in size and in building technique it is one of the major passage- graves of Ireland. It was thus felt that excavation was necessary both to search for evidence of funerary deposits and to reveal as much as possible of its construction, so that an adequate record could be included in the Survey. And while equipment and labour were assembled for this task it seemed wise to undertake the excavation of the smaller round cairn on the northern summit.

Special difficulties were foreseen in working on so lofty and exposed a hilltop and it was decided to try to overcome these by the use of student labour encamped on the mountain. A camp was therefore established on the northern end of the mountain about 600 ft, below summit level and some thirty students from the Archaeology and Geography Departments of Queen's University had their first experience of a training excavation during the period June 17th — July 20th, 1961. The main features of the monument may be summarised as follows : the passage-grave, dry-walled and with lintel-roofed passage and corbelled chamber, lacks side chambers but possesses an end-chamber opposite the passage. The passage is 15 ft. long and begins some 10 ft. from the nearest point on the cairn kerb. The intervening space, now occupied by some half dozen fallen and two erect stone slabs, is presumably the site of the funnel shaped 'porch' described by Harris in 1739.

Reading:-

"The Cairn on Slieve Gullion." Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society 5.3 (1923): 165. Extracted from Statistical Survey of Co. Armagh, by Sir Charles Coote, 1804.

The Slieve Gullion Cairns

Author(s): A. E. P. Collins and B. C. S. Wilson

Source: Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Third Series, Vol. 26 (1963), pp. 19-40Published by: Ulster Archaeological Society The Slieve Gullion Passage-Grave Cairn

Author(s): A. E. P. CollinsSource: Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society, Vol. 5,No. 1 (1969), pp. 179-182

Prendergast, F. (2011) ''The Loughcrew Hills and Passage Tomb Complex''. Stefanini, B. & Glynn, G.M. (Eds.) Field Guide No. 29 -

North Meath. Irish Quaternary Association. pp 42 -54.

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