Loughcrew

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Loughcrew (Irish: Loch Craobh) is near Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland. (Sometimes written Lough Crew). Loughcrew is a site of considerable historical importance in Ireland. It is the site of megalithic burial grounds dating back to approximately 3500 and 3300 BC, situated near the summit of Sliabh na Caillí

[edit] The Loughcrew Passage Tomb Cemetery

Lough Crew Passage Tomb Cemetery is one of the big four passage tomb sites in Ireland (the others are Bru na Boinne, Carrowkeel and Carrowmore). They are thought to date from about 3300 BC. The sites consist of cruciform chambers covered in most instances by a mound. A unique style of megalithic petroglyphs are seen there, including lozenge shapes, leaf shapes as well as circles. The site has three parts, two are on hilltops, Carnbane East and Carnbane West. The other, less well preserved cairn is at Patrickstown. The Irish name for the site is Sliabh na Calliagh, which means mountains of the witch, and legend has it that the monuments were created when a witch flying overhead dropped her cargo of large stones from her apron. The orthostats and structural stones of the monuments tend to be from local green gritstone, which was soft enough to carve, but which is also vulnerable to vandalism. There is a widespread belief that Cairn T in Carnbane East is directed to receive the beams of the sun at sunrise on the autumn Equinox - with light entering and illuminating the art on the backstone.

[edit] Modern History

In more recent centuries Loughcrew became the seat of a branch of the Norman-Irish Plunkett family, whose most famous member became the martyred St Oliver Plunkett. The family church stands in the grounds of Loughcrew Gardens. With its barren isolated location Sliabh na Caillí became a critical meeting point throughout the Penal Laws for the dispossessed Irish. Even though the woods are now gone an excellent example of a Mass Rock can still be seen on the top of Sliabh na Caillí today. Following the overthrow of the Plunketts by Cromwellian forces the Plunketts were dispossessed and their estate at Loughcrew was given by Sir William Petty to the Naper Family c.1655. The Napers built an extensive estate of some 180,000 acres (730 km²) in north Meath in the subsequent centuries which mirrored that developed by their neighbouring Cromwellians, the Taylors of Headfort. Following a third and devastating fire, in 1964, the three Naper sons went to court and requested that the state allow the family trust to be broken up and the estate divided between the three sons.