County: Sligo Site name: BREEOGE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: E. Rynne & M. Timoney, Dept of Archaeology, University College, Galway
Site type: Megalithic tomb - wedge tomb
Period/Dating: Chalcolithic (2500 BC-2201 BC)
ITM: E 564859m, N 831906m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.234814, -8.539021
In 1968 the remains of a hitherto unrecorded Wedge-Grave were discovered at Breeoge, Co. Sligo, on the edge of the Carrowmore Passage-Grave area. Unfortunately, the few remaining orthostats were bulldozed away and the land ploughed before the tomb was accurately surveyed and the site was, in consequence, excavated in 1972.
Despite extensive excavations, no indications of the tomb-plan were discovered. Cremated human bones and teeth, of an adult, were found at what would have been the rear of the chamber; in the same area but generally at a level slightly above them some unburnt human bones and teeth, of an adult and of a youth between 12 and 16 years, were found. No grave-goods were found, but just outside the tomb are a small plano-convex bone fragment, decorated with incised criss-crossing lines and possibly part of a side-plate from a bone comb of the Early Historic Period, was found. Two gunmoney coins (one of James II dated 1689, the other too badly defaced for identification but also Irish) were also found.
