Kilmogue Portal Tomb, Portal tomb in County Kilkenny, Ireland.
Kilmogue Portal Tomb, also called Leac an Scail, is a portal tomb built of granite with quartz veins. Two portal stones about 3.7 metres high support a roughly four-metre capstone whose rear end rests on a pillow stone on a backstone. A door-stone nearly three metres high stands in the northeast entrance, and a menhir stands in the same field.
The tomb was built around 3000 BCE during the Neolithic period, showing how prehistoric Irish people engineered complex stone structures. These burial monuments were created across the land over many generations and served communities for centuries.
The name Leac an Scail means "the hero's stone"; scal literally means "burst", and scal ghréine (sunburst) refers to the mythological Fianna warriors. It may also be read as Leac an Scáil, "the stone of the shadow or ghost". Kilmogue comes from Cill Mhóg, a church linked to St Mogue.
The tomb lies about seven kilometers northeast of Mullinavat and is reached via a country lane with parking available near the field entrance. The site is easy to access on foot, though the surrounding ground can turn muddy after rain.
The entrance faces northeast, aligned with the sunrise at midsummer, suggesting that whoever built it may have tracked the sun's movements. This careful orientation hints that astronomy played a role in how they planned and positioned the stones.
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