Dolmens – Ancient Irish Tomb graves for Cremation and Burial

The Burren –

One of my favorite landscapes in Irelands and about .5% of the landmass.
It will be no surprise that the Burren takes its name from the Irish word ‘bhoireann’ meaning, ‘a rocky place’, which is a good description for this 350 sq kilometers limestone plateau in Clare. The rough, intriguing and attractive landscape was formed 300+ million years ago under the sea. Later it was shaped by ice, hard weather and, of course, man and his animals.

Not really a cemetery but still a place with many burials. The many wedge tombs and megalithic tombs prove that people have been living in the Burren for 5000 years. One of the more famous megalithic tombs, the portal dolmen at Poulnabrone, dates back to around 2,500 BC. ‘Dolmen’ means ‘table’, which is what a dolmen looks like – a large capstone on two or three standing stones. One of Our unique Urns takes it’s inspiration from the sacred place that celebrates lives lost but forever remembered. The findings at Poulnabrone showed a hard physical life with a coarse diet for people at that time. Among the 20 to 30 people buried there, only one lived to be 40. My Friends mother Maureen (RIP) painted this Dolmen and for anybody interested, it a featured image in one of my blogs on my website, https://irishurns.wpengine.com – Bob