Clodagh Finn: Lady Chatterton’s 19th-century drawing led to the rediscovery of a prehistoric Kerry tomb

A 19th-century drawing by Lady Chatterton has led to the rediscovery of a 4,000-year-old prehistoric tomb thought to have been destroyed

After Lady Chatterton married Cork landowner Sir William Abraham Chatterton, they spent time here, in England and in Germany and moved in circles that included such luminaries as Charles Dickens, William Wordsworth and even Queen Victoria. Picture: National Trust

IT’S always a source of intense interest when a ‘lost’ treasure is found. A special salute to folklorist Billy Mag Fhloinn whose keen eye and knowledge of a 19th-century drawing led him to rediscover a 4,000-year-old prehistoric tomb thought to have been destroyed.

He located the remains of the evocatively named Altóir na Gréine (the sun altar) on the top of a hill in Ballyferriter, Co Kerry. A tantalising account from the 1930s in the Irish Folklore Collection suggests it has some kind of solstice alignment, with the “eastern sun hitting the tomb at sunrise”.