padodes on Seahan

The name Seahan is said to come from ‘Suíochán’. On the Down Survey map of 1655 and on Rocque’s map of 1760, the mountain is called “Seavick na Bantree”, an anglicisation that suggests the translation ‘Seat (Suí) of the Widow’s Son’. The word “Suí” in one combination or another keeps coming up in other hilltop names in this area as well (Seefin, Seefingan), and it clearly refers in each case to the large megalithic tombs on those mountains. If we remember that the old Fenian Cycle in Irish literature situates some of the heroic feats of Finn MacCool and the Fianna in nearby Glenasmole and the hills around, I think it’s easy to understand how the popular imagination would see in these giant ‘seats’ the haunts of our Celtic supermen. Seefin (Suí Finn), just 3.5 kms to the south of Seahan, makes the association explicit.

There are no less than three megalithic tombs on Seahan. The cairn to the east is a passage tomb, over 21m in diameter, with a kerb of elongated granite stones. On top of the cairn can be seen the capstone (visible in the photo) over the central chamber. The second cairn, now topped with a trig pillar, is almost 24m in diameter and 2m high. It appears never to have been opened. A short distance further west lie the shattered remains of a wedge tomb – a kind of burial that is considered unusual above 300m.

Seahan can easily be included in a circuit that includes Corrig (the only top without a megalithic monument), Seefingan and Seefin. It’s a walk I have recorded as being approximately 12 kms. The route practically follows the boundary line and, indeed, the stumpy granite boundary markers (one of which sits atop the cairn on Seefingan) around the military firing-range of Kilbride and loops back along the stretch of road in front of it. To enjoy this walk, you definitely need either a good dry spell beforehand, or preferably hard frost. Otherwise, be prepared to get an unpleasant sinking feeling along many a stretch. Linkback: mountainviews.ie/summit/200/comment/3552/

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padodes on Seahan

The OS sheet only indicates a cairn and megalithic tomb on top of Seahan, but there is also a wedge tomb only a stone’s throw just west of these two. To my mind, it’s the most photogenic of all three, despite the few shattered slabs that remain. It has had perhaps four thousand years of history wash over it and still resists. It has seen off the heroic huntsmen of the Fianna who allegedly roamed these hills and will see off too the mud-bespattered bikers who now rake up the earth around it. If you are looking for a little taste of timelessness, why not nestle down in the tomb and think yourself back into the mysterious world of the Neolithic chieftain who was once laid in it? Maybe the whisper you hear will not only be the rustle of the wind in the heather… Well, it’s just a suggestion.

Normally such tombs were not built above 300m, but this one lies at twice that height. Considering the many other tombs that bedeck all of these hills, one might sometimes feel like being in a necropolis here. In the photo, you can see Seefingan on the left, with its cairn, and Seefin on the right, with its impressive passage grave. Those living in the plains below could never have felt that their dead were far away.

In the photo you can also make out in the distance the snowy top of Mullaghcleevaun, with its north-facing corrie. Linkback: mountainviews.ie/summit/200/comment/4494/

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Seahan Summit

A very quick hike up Seahan starts the first of 4 mountains.Seahan,Corrig mt,Seefin and Seefingan Linkback: mountainviews.ie/summit/200/comment/5828/

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padodes on Seahan

Looking southwards from Seahan, the hazy planes of several hills seem to overlap in the distance: Seefingan, Seefin, Sorrel. In reality, they form, together with Seahan, a wide arc, with Seefingan at 2.67 kms distance, Seefin at 3.52, and Sorrel at 8.70, as the crow flies. They are all linked, too, through the presence of megalithic cairns on each one. The distant mounds are perfectly visible in the photo, at least at full resolution, and are not exactly on the summit of each hill but slightly lower down to the west, facing out across the fertile plain that laps up against the hills of north-west Wicklow, along the borders with Kildare and Dublin.

The picture that archaeology provides of this area gives enormous added interest to walking in these hills. It takes us back to the development of farming in neolithic times, when organised communities cultivated here the lowland fringes of the central plain, yet buried their eminent dead in elaborate hilltop tombs. The similarities in construction and symbolism all point to a common social and religious outlook that one would love to be able to grasp.

As far as the hills themselves are concerned, one thing that leaves me pensive is the fact that, even at that early stage, the human impact on the terrain was already quite notable. From an examination of the pollen record preserved deep in the bog (and one such study was made precisely in the area between Seefin and Seefingan), there is evidence of the prehistoric clearance of trees for pasture and of the later burning of the moorland that replaced the woods. Today we complain of the ugly clear-felling of forest and the recurring summertime ritual of turning the heather to ashes, but, for better or for worse, these are things that have been carried on here in the hills for well over four thousand years! Linkback: mountainviews.ie/summit/200/comment/3551/

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Normal walk up Dublin Neighbour turns into Ethereal Christmas Cairnscape!

Walked up to Seahan in December from the forest path coming up from Ballinascorney.
Walked through the forest and saw a herd of Shetland ponies coupled with a larger Horse of unknown breed. After getting over the fence, (I do not recommend this route!) I got to the main track which runs parallel with the Dodder/Bohernabreena reservoir
below, rapidly passing out routing fairweather walkers who had evidently not bargained for the encroaching mist, or gods help them, actual height of the mountains.

At this stage, there was almost no sound, and the corpses of cut down trees which garnish the ground cast ghoulish shadows worthy of any great war reenactment.
As the mist grew fatter, I heard a strange noise piercing the mountainside, and my imagination summoned Demons of ancient myth from Fomorians to Fir Bolg. I also knew I was now a star of a 'think we're alone now' cover. However I realized what the unwelcome sight was: a solo Quad-biker who felt utterly entitled to churn up the trackway (which is already in a sorry state), though he was actually polite - I resisted the urge to pull a Braveheart on him for his environmental sacrilege, nonetheless I feel this should not be encouraged. Not long after, I noticed ice sheeting the rivulets of water which trickled off the hillside, and finally I reached the snowline, where layered feathers of the North Pole's best transformed the scene into a soundless moonscape. Stalagmitic daggers hung off the nearby bogland, and I noticed a sculpture of ice somebody had erected atop some bracken nearby - to which I added an axelike shard of rock from nearby. I pressed on and, only 100 metres away, the Cairn emerged from the mist like the prow of a ship near some far-flung glacier.

I stood on the Cairn (which has centuries on the Pyramids and was already ancient when the Romans first conquered our Welsh neighbours). The so-called 'Ava's monument' on top had been blasted by ice and yet there was almost no wind. Indeed the scene was a churchlike silence to which I can do justice only by encouraging repeat walks by others when similar conditions allow and align. Tried being smart and covering a new route on the way back as the darkness rose-all I will say is, don't do that. Anyway. Some say the ancients believed these monuments were a gateway to another world. After my experience, I can't say as they were wrong. Linkback: mountainviews.ie/summit/200/comment/21950/

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