School: Clochar na Trócaire, Maghcromtha (roll number 10047)

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1. An Ancient Battle-Field near Macroom (continued)

   

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   to come out and make a careful examination of the site. He was not permitted to carry away anything. It is very much regretted that Mr Harding never carried out his intention. The cave has since been closed up and has never since been opened. When Mr Crook next saw the relics they were folded up in a piece of canvas in the Macroom Dispensary. They were in a state of disintegration, the horses teeth alone retained their shape. Here then was a veritable battle pit now first opened after a lapse of about nine hundred years.
   "Heaped and pent
   Rider and horse- friend, foe, in one red burial bent."
   The cave appeared to him to be about ten feet long by five feet broad. The height from the floor to the roof being three feet in some parts gradually reducing to two feet. The rood had the form of an arch. The site of this cave is ancient river fluff composed of drift gravel and aluminous clay. Before the animal contents decomposed and collapsed, the clay cemented the gravel sufficiently to resist ordinary external pressure and thus an arch was formed not made by human hands. He had no doubt that further search of the site of this battle would reveal many other similar caves as the slaughter is represented to have been very great.

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. objects
      1. man-made structures
         1. historical and commemorative structures (~6,794)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Nellie O' Shea

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Mullenroe, Co. Cork