Poulnabrone tomb, co.Clare

While driving along a quiet country road through the Burren, I admired the many stone walls which had been built around the many fields, all of them which were to my amazement  stone free.
You have to know, the Burren in co.Clare are a karst limestone plateau, and wherever you look, you see stones, stones and more stones.
Those walls must have been painstakingly built over many years, maybe even handed down from generation to generation.
At that moment, I noticed a sign to Poulnabrone tomb, so decided to park the car and investigate it further.

Walking towards the tomb, a series of information signs guided us through the story of the landscape, the geology of the Burren, and the flora and fauna that thrive in this seemingly barren terrain.

The tomb itself is a classic portal dolmen, its two tall portal stones flanking the entrance to a rectangular, stone‑lined chamber. All of it is crowned by a single massive capstone, balanced so perfectly that it has stood here for more than five thousand years.
When Poulnabrone Dolmen was excavated in the mid‑1980s — back when Duran Duran, Queen, The Cure and The Police were blasting from Walkmans and cassette players — archaeologists discovered the remains of at least 33 individuals inside the chamber. The bones, badly fragmented by time, belonged to men, women and children. Evidence suggests they were originally buried elsewhere and later transferred to the tomb as part of a ritual practice.

Personal items were found alongside them: beads, stone axes, flint tools and weapons — small but powerful reminders of the people who lived, worked and honoured their dead in this ancient landscape.
Ireland is rich in Neolithic history, and sites like this are scattered across the country, each with its own story.
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Back in the car, I continued my journey through the Burren, the lunar‑like landscape rolling out around me. And fittingly, an 80s classic came on — “Walking on the Moon” by The Police — a soundtrack that couldn’t have matched the scenery any better.