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Who
What
Where
When
Why
Legananny Portal Tomb
 

County

Down

Coordinates

N 54° 19' 23.04"   W 006° 01' 12.6"

Nearest town

Moneyslane

Grid Ref.

J 28790 43402

Map No.

20

Elevation a.s.l. (m)

267

Date of visit

Thursday 11 September 2003

GPS Accuracy (m)

3
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For a few seconds the sun was our friend!


This amazing and wonderful portal tomb is one of the most famous and most photographed dolmens in all Ireland and Northern Ireland. The term dolmen derives from the Breton expression "taol maen", meaning "stone table".
No portal tomb in the Irish isle looks like a table more than the Legananny tomb. It can also look like a three-legged stool. Whatever it looks like it is very beautiful. The access is via a track, on foot only.
The rear end of the capstone is 1.70 metres from the ground, the front end is about 2.50 metres tall. The capstone is about 40 centimetres thick. The monument is about 2 metres long and 1 metre wide. The entrance faces south (170°).

UPDATE: June 24th, 2016 - After 13 years we succeded in returning to one of the first monuments featured in this website. Nothing has changed here, not even the weather.
On this occasion I've had the chance to take more accurate measurements of this monument so that I can amend what I had written about it in the past. This is the most famous portal tomb in Ireland after Poulnabrone, and it is undoubtedly one of the landmarks of Northern Ireland.
The structure is 2.88 metres long and 1.70 metres wide. The height is 1.45 metres at the rear end and 2.47 metres at the front side, which faces south (180°).
It's amazing how the capstone, which is about 45 centimetres thick, stands in perfect balance on the three legs of the tomb. It touches the upright stones only in very narrow spots and has a slope of 11°.
The west portal stone has a very regular shoulder, I doubt it is a natural feature.
The photos from the sixth one are new.


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