Dooey's Cairn, or Ballymacaldrack Court Tomb, is a prehistoric site of the Neolithic period, situated near Dunloy, Northern Ireland. It is named after Andrew Dooey, who owned the land; the monument was granted to the state in 1975 by his family. It is maintained by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency.
Court tombs, or court cairns, are of the Neolithic period (c. 4000 to 2000 BC). There are about 400 in Ireland, and most of them are in the northern half of the island. A court tomb has an open area, bounded by upright slabs or drystone walling, in front of a chamber. It is thought that a ritual or social event took place here.
Dooey's Cairn is well preserved. Court tombs are usually aligned north–south, but here the U-shaped court, defined by eleven upright slabs, faces south-west of a small roofless chamber; two portal stones are at the entrance to the chamber. Excavation in 1935 found polished stone axes beneath the portal stones.
Behind the chamber are two more portal stones leading to a passage, length about 6 metres. This 'cremation passage', investigated during excavation of 1975, originally had a timber roof and a cobbled floor; it had three pits containing the cremated bones of five or six adult humans. It is the only court cairn in Ireland with a cremation passage.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).