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In Limerick Today
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Limerick can claim to have the earliest human burial remains in Ireland. Cremations dating to the Mesolithic period, nine thousand years ago, have been found at Castleconnell, a few miles from Limerick city. There is extensive evidence of Neolithic activity, from about six thousand years ago, in the county, particularly the early wooden house site at Tankardstown and the extensive settlement and ritual site at Lough Gur.
Discoveries dating to the subsequent Bronze Age continue to be made especially the still-debated Fulachta Fiadh which seem to have been more than just open-air cooking places. Iron Age material, as elsewhere in Ireland, remains patchy and elusive. In terms of prehistoric monuments the fine Passage tomb at Duntryleague, near Galbally is the earliest and of the slightly later Wedge tombs, the most accessible, and best known, is that at Lough Gur which also has one of the most impressive stone circles in Ireland though some would regard it as a henge monument.