Friday, June 26th: Cliffs of Moher

By Charles Greening

On our way to the Cliffs of Mohor, our cohort of ten college students, two professors, and one bus driver would only be paused for one detour, the Poulnabrone Dolmen, the tiniest, most remarkable, landmark I have seen yet in Ireland. 

This megalithic monument, though barely taller than me, is unassuming at first glance. It is mostly made up of only a few slabs of stone, two upright flanking the entrance and topped with a single sloping capstone. A second stone lies behind the monument, signaling that once it might have rested on the structure's rear.

 Underneath this building, are over thirty buried bodies, classifying it as a portal tomb, from some time period of about 600 years between 5,200 and 5,800 years ago, that means that this tiny building is older than the pyramids, and most forms of writing!

Perhaps most curiously, however. is what lays underneath. The unique geology of this place, along with the ancient earth movements that brought it forth, fractured and folded the limestone around it so that it created hairline fractures to deep cracks in the stones called grikes. Some of these are so deep I couldn’t see the bottom. Altogether this place brings to mind imagery of ancient caverns, and lost civilizations, never to be known.