. State care sites and monuments represent all periods of human settlement in Ireland from c.8,000BC to the 20th century. State Care Monuments are not simply 'educational': monuments may provide distinctive habitats, or offer peace and tranquillity. Visiting monuments can take you to some of the most beautiful parts of Northern Ireland, and you can also enjoy visiting NIEA Country Parks. The first monuments were taken into care by the state in 1869 and there are now 185 sites and monuments protected by NIEA. Some sites have staffed visitor facilities, with set opening hours and entrance charges, but many are un-staffed and remote. There is an ongoing programme to carry out repair and conservation work and to provide information for visitors. Some monuments may be closed to the public until work is completed to make them safe, others may be temporarily closed for maintenance.
To view a full list of monuments in state care, see: Historic Monuments in State Care at March 2007 (.PDF 56Kb).
You can look up each monument by inputting the 'SM' number into the online Sites and Monuments Record.
For enquiries telephone 028 9054 3037 or email hmenquiries@doeni.gov.uk.
Some interesting 'places to visit' Bushfoot & Lissanduff Earthworks - ANT 3:1 & 3:2
On high ground NE of Portballintrae, where the River Bush approaches the sea, there are two large earthworks, possibly prehistoric in date, each with a central area enclosed by two surrounding banks, and with a wide space between these banks.
The larger (SW) earthwork has a roughly circular inner enclosure, surrounded by an irregularly oval outer bank. The whole area is damp but, in particular the inner enclosure is very wet and seems to have been built around a natural spring.
Both the date and the purpose of this site remain a puzzle. The earthworks have been compared to the ritual pool at Tray, Navan (the King's Stables) and also a similar "enigmatic and very damp earthwork" in Gortatray, Tyrone - the "trae" in Portballintrae may be a link with these other sites.
Half a mile (0.8 km ) E of Ballycastle, S of the A2 to Cushendun in Ballycastle golf course. Small carpark at entrance. This Third Order Franciscan Friary, traditionally founded by Rory MacQuillan in about 1500, was involved in warfare in the late 16th century, but was repaired and used until the mid 17th century. The approach is through a gatehouse set in an earth bank. The long narrow church has three windows and a door in the S wall and a two-phase E window with broken flamboyant tracery. N of the church was a cloister and in the E range is the sacristy for storing equipment, a day-room for indoor work and the friars' dormitory above. The 17th-century chapel and vault running S from the church hold the burial place of the MacDonnells, Earls of Antrim. There are many interesting gravestones in the surrounding cemetery, including memorials for sailors of the two world wars drowned off the nearby coast.
Martello towers were built round the Irish and English coasts between 1804 and 1812 to guard against Napoleonic invasion. The Magilligan tower was built in 1812 together with another at Greencastle, commanding the strategically important entrance to Lough Foyle. The circular tower is built of dressed stone, stands 10m high and was entered at first floor level by a retractable ladder, with added protection from the machicolation above.
The ground floor was used as a powder and ammunition store, while the first was residential, accommodating 12 men and their officer. On the top were two 24-pounder cannon on a central pivot and circular rail, similar to those at Carrickfergus.
The tower is in Magilligan Nature Reserve but visitors should take care not to stray onto the adjoining army ranges.
Half a mile (4 km) NW of Swatragh, reached by turning W off the A29 N of Swatragh on Tamnyrankin Road and right along a lane to a lay-by. There are magnificent views from the site. This is a fine court tomb with a long, high cairn, a semicircular court on the SE, defined by impressive stones, and probably a two-chambered gallery (only one chamber is exposed). At the back of the cairn is an unusual subsidiary gallery across its whole width, with an antechamber to the NE and jambs defining two chambers.
The site was excavated in 1939-40 and further work on the tomb was done in 1977. The gallery was badly disturbed but a cremation of an adult human was found as well as several different types of pottery and flints, indicating both Neolithic and Bronze Age activity.
In Moneyvart townland, 1 mile (1.6 km) NE of Cushendall, approached by a short footpath from a car park off the coast road to Torr Head. The ruined church in its graveyard is delightfully set beside a fast-flowing stream above the sea at Port Obe. Although there is a local tradition that it was a Franciscan foundation, this was a parish church in 1302-6 and continued in use until 1790. The fabric shows at least four phases of medieval and post-medieval remodelling. The long narrow church had a tower at the W end, with access to the upper floor by an external stair, probably to provide residential accommodation for the priest. Marks of wicker centring are clear under its vault. Aerial photographs of the site show marks suggesting that church and some adjacent burials lie within a second, inner enclosure, around 32m in diameter. Fine gravestones in the yard include MacDonnell memorials and remind us of the area's maritime and Scottish connections. A well-known holed cross stands near the graveyard gate, reused as a gravestone and a possible cross slab re-used as a lintel may be Anglo-Norman or later medieval. The commonly found 'Layde' spelling of the name seems to be an antiquarian form, as the Ordnance Survey spelling of the parish is Layd.
2.5 miles (4 km) N of Claudy, just N of the main A6 Londonderry road immediately S of Brackfield Presbyterian church, with a large car park at entrance. The bawn, sited on a hillslope, commands the ancient E-W route to Londonderry, close to the Faughan river. It was built soon after 1611 by Sir Edward Doddington, on land granted to the Skinners' Company, and is shown in the drawing by Thomas Raven illustrating Sir Thomas Phillips's 1622 survey. The walled bawn is square, with egg-shaped flanker towers at opposite (NW and SE) corners, and is entered through a gateway 3.5m wide in the N wall. The house along the S wall was 6 m wide and its fireplaces can be seen, projecting beyond the line of the S wall. Excavation in 1983 confirmed the area of the house but little other information survived.
This small ruined church in its graveyard is beautifully set beside Lough Neagh, on a small rise at Churchtown Point, 3.75 miles (6 km) SW of Randalstown and 5 miles (8 km) SE of Toome. There is a large carpark at the lough shore. It was the medieval parish church, probably abandoned in the 17th century. The ruin is simple and difficult to date but may be 13th century. A wooden cross inside the ruin is a replica of an ancient oak 'termon' cross, which formerly stood 1 mile N of the church, marking the boundary of church lands. The site of the original cross is now marked by a stone replica, visible in a field beside the Randalstown road. Nearby on the shore to the E is a famous holy well, traditionally associated with St Colman and a focus for pilgrims, especially in May and June. It was famed for protecting men at sea and women in childbirth. The well is the site of an annual mass, which includes the blessing of Lough Neagh fishermen's boats.
This site has been built around a stream flowing through the secluded valley. It has been strongly associated with St. Patrick, although the earliest written reference is in 1302-6 and none of the surviving buildings is certainly earlier than about 1600. Pilgrimages to the site are well documented from the 16th century onwards.
The waters were believed to have curative powers, and the site has 2 roofed wells and 2 bath houses (one for men, one for women), all fed by the stream, as well as a ruined church. One of the wells is known as a Drinking Well, the other an Eye well.
The Men's Bathhouse has three chambers; a dressing room with seats, the bathing room, and a separate room at E, also with stone seats, which was the dressing room for the adjacent Women’s Bathhouse. The church was built c.1750, to replace an earlier structure and was apparently never finished.
In the grounds of Benburb Servite Priory, dramatically sited on the cliff edge above the River Blackwater, this bawn was built by Sir Richard Wingfield c.1615, on the site of a stronghold of Shane O'Neill. Although Wingfield himself never lived there, the castle has been occupied ever since, including use during WWII by American troops.
The walls enclose an irregular rectangular area, and still stand to almost full height, plentifully supplied with gun loops. At two corners are rectangular towers, built more like tall houses than ordinary flankers, and were used as such, rather than building a separate house within the walls. At the S end is a circular tower with a stair down to a postern gate at the cliff edge. A cottage was later built within the bawn by the Bruces in the 19th century; it is privately occupied and not open to the public.
This castle stands on a prominent hill, commanding important river valley routes and is named after Henry Aimhréidh O'Neill who died in 1392; a late 14th-century date for the castle is possible (excavations on site discovered a probably 14th-century window head).
It is an unusual and interesting ruin, a stone castle deep in what was then Gaelic Ulster. An artificially-scarped mound formed an elevated 'bailey' or courtyard, surrounded by a curtain wall with at least two projecting towers, all now ruined to a low level.
At its SW end is a tower that looks like a gatehouse, defended by a bridge-pit and entered between high D-shaped towers, but the only way into the courtyard behind was up a stair and through the hall at first floor level. In function the building resembles a tower-house rather than a true gatehouse. Features include a draw-bar slot for the main door, latrine chutes and marks of wicker centring in the tower vaults.
The circular enclosure is about 190 m (over 600 ft) in diameter, and its bank is 3.6 m high and 18.2 m wide, made of material dug from the interior. Just E of the centre is a chambered tomb of five uprights with a large capstone, probably the remains of a passage tomb.
The earthwork is a henge, a late Neolithic ceremonial or assembly site, and it is the largest known in Ireland. The area is dotted with prehistoric monuments, including cist burials and standing stones. Research and excavation during the 1990s on the ridge to the N uncovered the remains of a huge timber enclosure with structures & burials, confirming that this whole area was an important Neolithic ceremonial landscape, in which the Giant’s Ring had a prominent place.
On the ridge of a raised beach at Millin Bay, this complex and unique late Neolithic burial monument appears now as an oval mound of sand, grass-grown, with a surrounding oval stone setting.
Excavation in 1953 revealed a complicated sequence of structures under the mound. Earliest was a N-S stone wall, followed by a long stone cist W, with the bones of at least fifteen individuals, neatly sorted and stacked. Around this another small cist and oval of stone slabs was set; the oval area was filled with shingle and slabs and surrounded by a shingle bank. Outside the bank seven more small cists were found, some with cremated bone, and the whole area was finally covered with a long mound of sand.
Many of the stones were decorated with pecked curvilinear and rectilinear motifs, suggesting some possible link with the passage tomb tradition. Most interesting is the way burials were treated in the different phases - in the earlier phase bones were carefully sorted and stacked together, while later bodies were cremated separately and buried in small, individual cists.
The cairn commands superb views S over the Clogher Valley. The covering cairn in its present form is modern, added in 1959 to protect the decorated stones inside from weathering and vandalism. Excavation showed that a stone cairn capped with earth within a stone revetment originally covered the burial chamber, which lies off centre within the cairn.
The passage of the ‘classic’ passage tomb is absent but several of the stones forming the chamber are decorated with characteristic passage tomb art, including circles, spirals and zigzags - one of the best examples of this art in the north. The designs connect Knockmany not only to nearby Sess Kilgreen, but also to the Boyne passage tombs and those at Lough Crew.
This very impressive court tomb was a peat-covered, largely featureless mound and was threatened with removal in an agricultural reclamation scheme. It was excavated between 1979 and 1982, shown to be of great interest, and reprieved.
A semicircular forecourt at the SE end leads through a portal with a massive lintel, into the burial gallery which is subdivided into 3 chambers in a short trapezoidal cairn. The cairn's drystone side revetment walls still stand to some height and some of the corbel stones of the roof are still in place.
Cremated bone representing the remains of 21 people, flint implements and Neolithic pottery were found during the excavation, some of the material in the court area. Radiocarbon determinations suggest a date of about 3500 BC, placing it in the Neolithic period, but there were also signs of later, Bronze Age, activity in the court and at the back of the cairn.
On the NW outskirts of Downpatrick, strongly sited on the edge of the Quoile marshes, this site is know as the Mound of Down, English Mount and Rathkeltair and is one of the major earthworks of Northern Ireland.
The site consists of a large oval earthwork, surrounded by a massive bank & ditch, with an entrance at NNE & a circular mound which rises from the interior of the platform.
The large earthwork is probably a pre-Norman enclosure, a royal headquarters of the Dál Fiatach, reused as the site of motte - an Anglo-Norman castle mound of the late 12th-century invasion period, but the mound was either unfinished or later altered; it is 12.5m high & is separated from the bailey by a ditch with a causeway at SW.
Three quarters of a mile (1.2 km) SSE of Dunloy in Ballymacaldrack townland, reached by a side road W off the B93. This well-known court tomb is named for the family who placed it in state care in 1976. It was excavated in 1935 by Estyn Evans and again in 1975 by Pat Collins, and is dated from charcoal to between 3000 and 2500 bc, placing it in the Late Neolithic period. A U-shaped forecourt leads to a stone chamber with, beyond, a long 'cremation passage' with three circular pits, which originally held wooden posts, possibly a mortuary house. One of the pits contained cremations of at least 5 adults. The cairn's edges are revetted with stone. The excavations indicated several stages of use and Gabriel Cooney has suggested a four-phase sequence. There are clear links with excavated sites in southern Scotland. With the two Craigs tombs*, this forms an interesting group of Neolithic burial monuments on Long Mountain.