Poulnabrone Portal Tomb

Poulnabrone Portal Tomb stands on the high limestone plateau of the Burren, beside the road between Ballyvaughan and Corofin in County Clare. Also widely known as the Poulnabrone Dolmen, it is one of Ireland’s most recognisable prehistoric monuments and, after the Cliffs of Moher, the most visited site in the Burren region.

The tomb is formed from two tall portal stones supporting a thin, sloping capstone, creating a chamber set within a low cairn of rock. A second, rear capstone collapsed in antiquity and now lies at the back of the monument. It is the oldest dated megalithic tomb in Ireland: radiocarbon dating of remains found here indicates it was used as a burial place over roughly six centuries during the Neolithic period, between about 5,800 and 5,200 years ago.

Excavations led by archaeologist Ann Lynch in the 1980s uncovered the remains of around 33 people, along with grave goods including a polished stone axe, stone and bone beads, a bone pendant, quartz crystals, flint and chert arrowheads and scrapers, and numerous shards of pottery. The name Poulnabrone is often translated as “the hole of the sorrows”, though “hole of the quernstone” has also been suggested.

The monument sits within a striking glacio-karst landscape of bare limestone pavement, scored by the deep cracks known as grikes and dotted with glacial erratics. A car park was opened by Clare County Council in 2007 to ease pressure on the narrow surrounding road, and the site is freely accessible in the open Burren countryside.