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Carnanagarranbane is a court tomb situated near Cookstown in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Court tombs are monumental passage graves belonging to the Neolithic period, typically constructed between 3500 and 3000 BCE. They are characterised by a central burial chamber preceded by an open forecourt or court area, where communal rituals and ceremonies may have taken place. The monument lies upon bedrock of Silurian felsic igneous origin, part of a Silurian to Ordovician intrusion underlying this part of north-central Ulster.
The structure at Carnanagarranbane would have been built using megalithic stones, with orthostats forming the chamber walls and roof stones creating the internal passage. The forecourt would have been defined by further orthostats set to frame the ceremonial space. Such monuments served as focal points for Neolithic communities, functioning as permanent ancestral burial places and gathering points for the dispersed farming populations of early prehistoric Ireland.
Carnanagarranbane is protected by the Historic Environment Division of the Department for Communities as a scheduled ancient monument under reference 14436. The site's location on distinctive igneous bedrock places it within a landscape of Paleozoic geology that would have been well-known to its builders and users. The monument remains an important record of early Irish funerary practice and social organisation.
Carnanagarranbane. court tomb is a scheduled monument protected by Department for Communities NI under reference 14436. View the official record →
Carnanagarranbane is a court tomb situated near Cookstown in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) under reference 14436.
Carnanagarranbane. court tomb dates from the neolithic period, and is classified as a megalithic tomb. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Carnanagarranbane. court tomb is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Ni. The official designation reference is 14436.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Burnt mound / fulacht fiadh (2.9 km), Ogham stone (3.7 km), Standing stone (3.7 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Carnanagarranbane. court tomb's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Carnanagarranbane. court tomb stands on Unnamed Igneous Intrusion, Ordovician To Silurian, bedrock that formed in the Silurian. The rock here is felsic-rock.