51a. Slievemore Mountain, Deserted Village,  Megalithic Tomb, Dugort Beach, Dooniver Strand, Achill Island, Co. Mayo, Ireland (2008 and 2023)

East Keel Portal Tomb on Slievemore

[Author of Irish Scenes © Dr WP Brown PhD (plus 'DocsPics' help from AI these days), page updated November 19th 2025]

*  The Slievemore deserted village on Achill Island

View of the deserted village houses on the 'street' track below Slievemore Mountain.

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The view over Keel Bay from the Deserted Village.

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Slievemore Deserted Village — summary and significance

The Slievemore “Deserted Village” is a linear settlement of ruined stone cottages scattered along the southern slopes of Slievemore on Achill Island, County Mayo. It is one of Ireland’s most photographed and archaeologically investigated abandoned settlements and forms a key component of the upland cultural landscape that includes field systems, burial features and post-medieval habitations.

Origins and long chronology

• Early origins: Archaeological survey and excavation indicate a deep, multi-period occupation sequence. Structural and artefactual evidence points to an origin in the Early Medieval period (roughly AD 500–1200), with later phases of rebuilding and reuse over many centuries rather than a single short-lived settlement phase.
• Continued use and evolution: The village’s fabric is a palimpsest: successive generations repaired, rebuilt and reconfigured house plans, yards and small fields. The visible stone cottages therefore incorporate medieval, early modern and 19th-century features layered in place.

Extent, plan and surviving fabric

• Size and distribution: The first-edition Ordnance Survey (1838) records 137 houses in the village; modern surveys can still identify traces of about 74 structures strewn along a c.1.5 km band on the mountain slope.
• Building form and construction: Houses are predominantly single-room, drystone-wall vernacular cottages with turf or stone-built field banks and small attached yards. Variation in house size and plan reflects long-term rebuilding and different household statuses. Robbed stones, collapse and vegetation obscure many features but the aggregate pattern remains readable as discrete habitation clusters linked by a trackway.

Economy, landscape use and household archaeology

• Mixed upland economy: Archaeological and historic evidence point to a mixed pastoral and arable economy adapted to marginal upland conditions: small enclosed plots for tillage (potatoes, oats), animal grazing on commonage, peat-cutting and foraging. House clusters relate to discrete field systems and seasonal uses, with transhumant or seasonal movement evident in the wider landscape record.
• Material culture: Survey and targeted excavations have produced domestic artefacts (metalwork fragments, pottery sherds, worked stone), charred plant remains and field-system features. These support a picture of household economies that adapted ancient practices through the medieval and post-medieval periods into the 19th century.

Demography and social history to abandonment

• 19th-century population: By the early 1800s the village was occupied as a living community recorded on Ordnance Survey maps; census and estate material indicate a dense, highly marginal population dependent on potato cultivation among other subsistence activities.
• Abandonment chronology and causes: The village did not vanish overnight; final abandonment is associated with the mid-19th-century crises (the Great Famine and its aftermath), economic decline, estate management practices and out-migration. Fieldwork indicates progressive contraction and final desertion through the later 19th century (commonly placed between the Famine years and c.1850–1890), rather than a single eviction event.

Archaeological investigation and interpretation

• Fieldwork programme: The site has been the subject of sustained research by the Achill Archaeological Field School and others. Work includes building survey, excavation of selected houses (notably House 36), palaeoenvironmental sampling, and landscape-scale mapping of field systems and trackways.
• Key findings: Excavation and survey have demonstrated the village’s multi-phase occupation, documented the diversity of house plans, and linked domestic deposits to long-term agrarian economies. Micromorphology, artefact sequencing and radiocarbon results have been used to refine phasing where possible.
• Interpretive emphasis: Current archaeological interpretation stresses continuity and resilience in the community’s economy and built environment, highlighting how medieval settlement patterns persisted into the 19th century and how abandonment was a gradual, socially complex process rather than a single dramatic event.

Landscape context and associated monuments

• Relationship to Slievemore mountain and heritage features: The village sits amid cairns, field banks, enclosure walls and megalithic and medieval sites; this interweaving of prehistoric and historic features makes Slievemore an excellent example of a long-lived ritual, agricultural and domestic landscape whose meanings changed through time.
• Visibility and movement: The linear arrangement along contour lines and the surviving trackway structure suggest planned siting for shelter, microclimate and access to grazing, peat and water, and a clear relationship to seasonal movement across the slopes.

Conservation, public access and community value

• Protection and management: The ruins are unroofed and exposed to weathering; management balances public access (walks, interpretation) with conservation needs. The site plays a central role in local heritage and tourism, and in teaching archaeological practice on Achill through field-school programmes.
• Commemoration and memory: The Deserted Village is both archaeological site and cultural touchstone—its ruined rows figure in local memory, folklore and national discussions about famine, emigration and rural decline. Archaeology has reframed part of that story by emphasising long-term continuity and complexity rather than a single catastrophe.

Outstanding research questions and potential studies

• High-resolution dating: More radiocarbon determinations across multiple houses and field contexts would tighten the phasing between medieval occupation, 18th–19th-century remodeling and final desertion.
• Household economy and diet: Stable isotope and palaeobotanical work across several house deposits could clarify subsistence change through medieval to post-medieval periods.
• Social causation of abandonment: Combining estate records, census data and archaeological chronologies can better resolve relative roles of famine, landlord policy and voluntary migration.
• Landscape archaeology: LiDAR and geophysical mapping across the slope would clarify hidden field boundaries, ephemeral structures and connections to other ritual monuments.

Further reading and practical resources

• Scholarly synthesis: Theresa McDonald’s study (International Journal of Historical Archaeology) provides a detailed archaeological account arguing for Early Medieval origins and multi-phase occupation, plus excavation results and field-system analysis.
• Field-school resources: The Achill Archaeological Field School website summarises survey results, excavation projects and the Ordnance Survey evidence for the village’s extent and survival into the 19th century.

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East Keel Portal Tomb on the slopes of Slievemore

The megalithic tomb on the southern slopes of Slievemore.

Keel East court tomb or Slievemore court tomb
 

A fine prehistoric site with a wonderful view from it!

Overview and significance

The Keel East (Slievemore) court tomb is a Neolithic megalithic burial monument located on the southern slopes of Slievemore, Achill Island, County Mayo, Ireland. It forms part of a dense archaeological landscape that includes the Slievemore deserted village and multiple other megalithic features; its upland setting and visibility make it an important local ritual focus and fieldwork target for regional archaeological projects.

Location, landscape context and site groupings

• Location: southern slopes of Slievemore at c.152 m elevation, just east of the Slievemore deserted village; accessible by a short track from Keel East and one of a cluster of monuments on the mountain slopes.
• Landscape role: positioned to command views across Achill’s coastal system and to sit within a palimpsest of later habitation and field systems; the tomb must be interpreted both as an isolated funerary structure and as part of a wider ritual and domestic landscape that includes historic and medieval settlement traces investigated by the Achill field school.

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Typology, plan and architectural description

• Type and layout: a court tomb (earlier Neolithic gallery grave) where an open forecourt leads into a gallery formed from orthostatic slabs and capped by large capstones or cairn material; Keel East actually comprises two adjoining court-tomb examples reported in the immediate area, with at least a two-chambered gallery and a substantial capstone covering the southern chamber.
• Orientation and construction features: the monument is roughly aligned north–south; the surviving gallery shows multiple orthostats, a defined court area and evidence for a multi-chamber sequence (at least two chambers), with large capstones and cairn remnants forming the tomb’s superstructure; stone selection and positioning indicate deliberate monumental construction rather than casual stone clustering.
• Condition: the tomb is in relatively good visible condition and readable as a court-tomb type, though weathering, later stone-robbing and post-medieval activity in the zone have affected cairn fabric and surrounding features.

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Chronology, mortuary evidence and material culture

• Date and use: typologically Neolithic (early/middle Neolithic horizon) and part of Ireland’s early monumental funerary tradition; court tombs are generally dated to the fourth–third millennia BCE, and Keel East fits that regional pattern though precise radiocarbon determinations for this individual monument are not widely published in popular sources.
• Burials and deposits: as with many court tombs, original use would have involved repeated interments or curated deposits in the gallery rather than a single primary inhumation; detailed published reports of cremation/inhumation at Keel East are limited in the accessible summaries, so local excavation reports or field-school archives are the best sources for precise osteological detail.
• Finds: surface reports note typical associated material such as worked flint, stone tools and cairn-related rubble in the locality; the site’s archaeology is best interpreted using the combined evidence of plan morphology and the finds recovered during local survey and excavation programmes.

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Excavation, survey history and conservation

• Recording and survey: Keel East has been recorded in national and enthusiast inventories (Megalithic Portal; MegalithicIreland) and forms part of the research remit for the Achill Archaeological Field School and local heritage bodies, which have surveyed and carried out selected excavations in the broader Slievemore landscape including the deserted village and associated monuments.
• Conservation and visitor management: the tomb is accessible and signposted with a small car-park and track; its upland setting subjects it to weathering and visitor impact, so ongoing site recording and conservation monitoring are necessary to protect fragile orthostats and capstones.
• Public archaeology: the site is used both as a fieldwork training resource and as part of guided local heritage interpretation that connects Neolithic monumentality with later settlement histories on Slievemore.

Research gaps, interpretive issues and directions for study

• Gaps: precise radiocarbon dating, detailed publication of any osteological assemblage from Keel East, and comprehensive artifact catalogues are underrepresented in available online summaries; much of the refined interpretation requires consulting primary excavation reports and field-school archives.
• Potential research directions: targeted radiocarbon and aDNA/isotope sampling (where ethical and preservationally possible) to explore mobility and kinship; micromorphology to read construction phasing within the cairn; integrated landscape survey to map the tomb’s visual, processional and resource relationships to the deserted village and nearby monuments.
• Teaching and public outreach: Keel East is an excellent case study for court-tomb typology, upland monument placement, the archaeology of ritual landscapes, and the challenges of linking prehistoric monuments to later historic rural settlement patterns.

Croaghaun from the slopes of Slievemore

Moving on to Dugort Village with its lovely blue flag beach below Slievemore Mountain.

The Cottage Cafe at Dugort - excellent and frequently visited!

More views of Dugort beach

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The pier at Dugort.

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We ended up helping a boat out to see to check on the lobster pots!

The 2nd blue flag beach east of Dugort village.

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Moving further east on the north side of Achill Island you come to Dooniver beach ...

... where the views continue to impress!

A splendid backdrop for a spot of yoga!

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Dooniver beach is safe for canoeing.

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	Dooniver Strand, Achill Island, Co. Mayo, West of Ireland, is a good picnic spot and a safe beach to swim and canoe from. The Nephin Mountains and hills across the bay look just like those in an Paul Henry west coast of Ireland painting! Dooniver beach is a place where you can practice your yoga too!

Back across Achill south-west to Keel for the late afternoon.

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The views of the Minaun Cliffs and Clare Island never cease to please the eye!

... and then back to Dooagh village.

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and to our holiday cottage in Dooagh with Slievemore always our constant companion.

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