Wow! Cairn discovered less than 20km from Kilkenny border

A cairn has been discovered in the Coolnacarrick townland of County Laois, less than 20km from the Kilkenny/Laois border, in the last 2 weeks.

Located on the summit of Coolnacarrick Hill the cairn was discovered by two non-professional  archaeologists with a driven and determined interest in the heritage of Ireland. 

The discovery has been reported to the National Monuments Service of Ireland and can now be seen  on the Historical Environment Viewer (HEV) of the service. Readers can go here  https://maps.archaeology.ie/HistoricEnvironment/and search for Coolnacarrick, Laois to check out  the Historical Environment Viewer. Click on the red dot to see the information now being provided by the National Heritage Service. 

The discovery was made by the pair of explorers first examining Google Earth imagery and then painstakingly heading to the site to investigate. Access took 2-3 hours of cutting through nearly 100m of dense gorse, briars and other scrub up the side of Coolnacarrick Hill until they reached the location  and confirmed the cairn.  

The views from the cairn over County Laois and surrounding counties are exceptional but somewhat  interfered with by the surrounding scrub and gorse. However, it is unlikely that many people will be able to visit the cairn in the near future to appreciate the find due to its overwhelming inaccessibility.

The discoverers are Gerry Moloney and Shane McGrath from Kildare. Gerry Moloney is a lecturer in Emerging Technologies in Institute of Technology Carlow while Shane McGrath is a product designer and owner/MD of Limelight Media Group. 

The pair have made many other observations and potential discoveries and intend to report these to  the National Monuments Service in the near future as research time permits.