Many thanks to Prof. Gabriel Cooney, who teaches at UCD College in Dublin, for granting me permission to composite some of his illustrations. You can check out the professor's new book "Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland", Routledge, London, 2000 and read his discourse on correlations across Irish Megalithic complexes and his ongoing research into porcellanite axe head distributions.
This particular mound complex occupies a high elevated ridge running NE - SW, 3 miles(2 kms), from the town of Oldcastle on the R154 road and some 25 miles (40 kms) from Bru Na Boinne(Boyne Valley)Megalithic complex to the East. There are 4 separate summits to this ridge at an altitude of above 762 ft (250 metres). 3 of these summits hold 2 or more megalithicmounds. There are approximately 31 such mounds, all forms of passages in one form or another in various states of decay and preservation. This is one of the 5 major mound complexes that occupy an area North of the Wicklow hills in Ireland. The 3 summits are further divided into Carnbane West (13 mounds), Carnbane East (11 mounds) and Patrickstown hill (3 mounds) to the furthest East. The remaining mounds lie at odd points on the ridge with one mound (cairn M )on the 4th summit between Carnbane East and Carnbane West.
The place name 'Carnbane' means 'white cairn' in reference to the quartz dressing that was used to render a distinctive facade to the mounds in question. This type of dressing appears to have been ubiquitiously used on all the major megalithic complexes in Ireland. Today some traces of quartz stone can be found scattered around these cairns. Before we go into alignments I'd like to lay to rest a ghost that has been haunting me about these site complexes. A ghost that refuses to go away. I saw this 'ghost' at Carrowkeel, at Bru Na Boinne and now it appeared again at Loughcrew. I have come across a new archaeological book by a professor of Archaeology at UCD in Dublin called 'Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland' .Professor Gabriel Cooney has laid out some interesting correspondances between these megalithic complexes in terms of the social, spatial, and temporal features that each site appears to emulate with the next. On the spatial side of things ,he clearly mentions the peculiar incidence of clusters of mounds occupying elevated positions across complexes and being a triad in number.(Note 1) On these complexes significant large mounds occupy commanding focal positions. It was when he referenced the Knocknarea- Carrowmore- Carns Hill triad that I saw the ghost reappear once more and I told myself I could no longer ignore this feature but had to determine whether it was by chance or intentional. Below I have laid out these triad complexes with their representative large focal cairns and some critical positional parameters that are more than a little curious. (see fig. below)
As you can clearly see distances between the large mounds are almost the same in the case of the Knocknarea-Carrowmore- Carns Hill triad, only being a tiny percentage out of equidistance. In the case of the offset angle to Carns Hill, that would place the 3 cairns in a perfect row, we come across 4° 49' of difference. In the second triad at Loughcrew (cairns L - T - Y) ,they are again almost equidistant from each other and have an offset angle of 9°13'. In the Bru Na Boinne complex the Triads are offset to a much wider angle 64° in this case and the inter-distances not nearly close to equal. Now if the cairn builders wanted to align their 'focal' cairns, as Gabrial Cooney has named them , in a straight line,could they achieve this within the limits of space on their respective summits. In the first triad, Queen Maeve's enormous cairn, on Knocknarea, would have plenty of room for repositioning on its summit. Likewise Site 51 (Listoghil) at Carrowmore but the cairn on top of Carns Hill is another matter altogether. There is little room for manoeuvre there.
Taking Loughcrew ,all the focal cairns, have plenty of summit space for repositioning except Cairn L on Carnbane W. It would appear that this cairn was 'inserted' in a position left open for it by the surrounding smaller cairns. With Cairn Y on Patrickstown Hill, it has the greatest positional flexibility and doesn't appear anywhere near the other hill top cairns there. In the third triad ,at Bru Na Boinne, Newgrange has the biggest area to manoeuvre with Knowth the least on their respective summit points. Professor Cooney has stated that large mounds occupy visibility on the hill tops. That's true but also in my estimation did they delibrately place them where they where for cosmological significance and reasoning?.
I have placed a series of what I term stellar triads that can be
viewed from the North side of Loughcrew's ridge on low ground looking South.
It should be noted that a particular cairn , Cairn D on Carnbane West
is the largest diameter cairn in ruined condition (see fig below)
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But in my estimation Loughcrew is closest to satisfying what we have laid out. The triad cairns in question (L,T & Y) appear to belong to a particular phase of mound building at this complex. This phase came after the smaller mounds were in situ.Obviously a new phase of representation of the sky was in evidence here.(Note 2)
This shows categorically that the spatial arrangement of the the cairns in the 1st and 2nd triads were intentional and clearly delibrate to add spiritual dimension to the cairn top summits.This summit spirit space is opposed to the underworld space where the sky 'Gods' disappeared off the horizon map as the night sky revolved. So which, if any of our stellar triads, fits the bill for Loughcrew. It would seem that Sirius - Elnilim - Aldebaran triad has the closest links in terms of offset angle percentage and distance parameters.
Seems a clear cut case, but before we go any further we need to look
at the low ground on the north side of the ridge because it contains
a wealth of peculiar artifacts that appear to contribute to our
arguement. Firstly there are numerous standing stones and stone
circles in the area much more so than the south low ground. What
does this mean? Well in my calculations, when the final cairn phase
was being inserted on the ridge tops(D/L - T - Y) the low ground became
an open air observatory. Of the standing stones in question, 5 of them
are almost in a perfect cardinal N -S axis line. I measured distances,
azimuths and altitudes from each of the 5 to each of the three to four
cairn tops and laid them out on a map. (See Below.)
| STANDING STONE | TO CAIRN Y | TO CAIRN T | TO CAIRN L |
| 1st furthest out | ALT (AZIMUTH) | ALT(AZIMUTH) | ALT (AZIMUTH) |
| 5th | 3° (110°) | 12° (142°) | 5° (222°) |
| 4th | 4° (110°) | 4° (152°) | 5° (214°) |
| 3rd | 4° (118°) | 5° (157°) | 4° (207°) |
| 2nd | 3° (120°) | 5° (150°) | 4° (205°) |
| 1st | 3° (129°) | 5° (163°) | 3° (202°) |
