Carrowcrom

Wedge Tomb - County Mayo

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Standing in pasture land about 7km ESE of Ballina, Carrowcrom is a wedge tomb in a very good state of preservation. The covering cairn still exists in places and has been supplemented over the years by the addition of field clearance stones to the sides. The tomb seems to have been "U" shaped, with a short facade either side of the gallery entrance. 
The gallery is about 3.5m long and  about 1.5m wide at the entrance, it  runs SW-NE and tapers in slightly towards the blocking of loose stones at its NE end.  There is a wide low stone set across the entrance to the gallery and this may be an original sill, but the gallery itself does not appear to have been segmented. Each side of the gallery has four orthostats visible from the interior, these are about a metre high at the entrance and gradually decrease in height towards the rear of the gallery. The gallery is truly wedge shaped, both in plan and in profile.
Both of the roof stones survive in place, the front stone overlapping and resting on the rear, they are fitted to the tops of the gallery orthostats by means of chock stones and dry-stone work. Much of the gallery orthostats and the rear roof stone are concealed beneath the cairn material when viewed from outside, so we could not tell whether the side walls were single or double, given the small dimensions of the cairn we suspect the former.
Although small, we felt that there was something very attractive about Carrowcrom, and it is certainly an easy tomb to visit as it is only metres from the road, there is even a stile set in the wall to aid access. Well worth a visit.