Altar Wedge Tomb

Altar Wedge Tomb
Built from local slabs, this wedge shaped tomb is one of a dozen in the Mizen peninsula. It was first erected at the end of the STONE AGE (whoa), around 3,000 to 2,000 BC, with its entrance deliberately lined up with the distant Mizen Peak.
Archaeologists recently uncovered some burnt human bone which they radiocarbon dated to about 2,000 BC and believe that the tomb continued to be used as a sacred site in the centuries that followed. Shallow pits, probably with food offerings, were dug into the chamber floor in the later Bronze Age-between 1,250 and 550 BC-and Celtic Iron Age people filled a pit with sea shells and fish bones sometime between 124 and 224 AD.
Whale bones were also found from this period. The ritual use of the site ended with the arrival of Christianity, but it was briefly resumed during the 18th century when the tomb was used as an altar by priests who were forbidden by law to say mass in a church.

A sacred place by the shore
As the name Altar suggests, people have worshipped here for over 4000 years. Bronze Age families may have honoured the spirits of their ancestors whose ashes were buried in the wedge tomb. More recently, in the 18th century, priests held services at the tomb and holy well when it was illegal to say Catholic mass in a church.
The church of the poor
Unusually the Protestant church in the area has an Irish name. Teampall na mBocht, the Church of the Poor, was built in 1847 at the height of the Great Famine. While in nearby Schull an average of 25 people died every day, Altar escaped relatively lightly. The Protestant Rector William Fisher organised the building of the church as a way of providing paid work for the poor of the parish, most of whom were Catholic.

This national monument is in the care of the Commissioner Act. The public are requested to aid the Commissioners in preserving it. Injury or defacement is severely punishable by law.Read more