1976:050 - TULLY, Fermanagh

An unrecorded court cairn was disclosed in 1970 during agricultural work in Tully townland, close to the W shore of Lower Lough Erne. The monument (FE. 16) occupies a shelf of a S facing slope at an altitude of 245ft O.D. and faces in a SSW direction. Following excavation in 1976, the cairn was found to be wedge-shaped in plan, 77ft overall in length, 50ft wide across the frontal revetments and an estimated 20ft in width at the back. A horseshoe-shaped court, 25ft deep and 23ft in maximum width, gave access to a burial gallery 30ft in length. This gallery, with entrance sill, consisted of two large chambers equal in length and 7-8ft in maximum width, separated by a sill between a pair of jamb stones set parallel with the long axis of the gallery.

Damage to the cairn at the time of discovery was comparatively slight, but an earlier determined attempt to level the site had left only three orthostats of the gallery intact. Besides the gallery, the court facade and the frontal revetments of the horns had been of orthostatic construction, but only the sockets, or at best the stumps of a few of the orthostats had survived disturbance, sufficient however to permit total recovery of the original layout. The bulk of the stones forming the body of the cairn had also been removed, save on the E. where a straight length of dry-walling, standing to a maximum height of 2ft marked the cairn edge. This lateral walling, however, had no structural significance, being added, presumably for the sake of appearance, as a veneer to a functional revetment composed of heavy slabs positioned at right angles to the facing.

Burial within the gallery was by cremation, the skeletal remains being largely confined to the inner chamber. Despite evidence of intense burning over the floor of the outer chamber, the presence here of a funeral pyre is doubtful. The artifactual material from the gallery consisted of a handful of sherds of W. Neolithic pottery, the burnt fragments of a bifacial flint implement and a large stone bead (cf. Bavan, DG23, Ulster J. Archaeol., 29(1966), fig. 11c). Carefully positioned and tightly packed stone slabs covered the burial deposit to a depth of 12in, and larger slabs, similarly placed, had formed the forecourt blocking, only the base of which survived adjacent to the gallery portal.

Two flint hollow-scrapers and a small bronze axe, 2 and 3/4in. long, were recovered from collapsed stonework on the E side of the cairn and a considerable amount of chert, including a few finished implements, occurred in topsoil at the S. end.