Ireland Treasure Blog: The Burren and Poulnabrone Dolmen

The word Burren derives from boireann, wich means “rocky land” in Gaelic – an apt name for this vast limestone plateau in northwest County Clare. This strange landscape of contorted rocks and hillocks was formed some 350 millions years ago. Its limestone pavements are riven by cracks called “grikes” that form isolated “clint” rocks.

In the 1640’s, Cromwell’s surveyor described it as “a savage land, yielding neither water enough to drown a man, nor tree to hang him, nor soil enough to bury”. Few trees manage to grow in this desolate place, yet other plants thrive.

The Burren is a unique botanical environment in wich Mediterranean and alpine plants rare to Ireland grow side by side. From May to August, an astonishing array of flowers adds splashes of colour to the austere landscape. These plants grow most abundantly around the region’s shallow lakes and pastures, but they also take root in the crevices of the limestone pavements which are the most striking geological feature of the rocky plateau. In the southern part of the Burren, limestone gives way to the black shale and sandstone that form the dramatic Cliffs of Moher.

In the heart of the Burren’s limestone plateu, there is the Poulnabrone Dolmen. This is a Neolithic portal tomb and is estimated as being 4500 years old. The Poulnabrone Dolmen is just one of more than 70 megalithic tombs in the Burren. It seems to have been an important ceremonial site where people of some standing were interred; radiocarbon dating suggests that these burial occurred between about 3800 and 3200 BC.

During an archaeological excavation at Poulnabrone the remains of more than 20 adults and children were found, together with a polished stone axe, some bone and flint items and broken pieces of pottery.