Beaghmore is a group of ancient Bronze Age structures, including stone circles and cairns, located 8.5 miles northwest of Cookstown, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, on the southeast edge of the Sperrin Mountains.

According to Mackay's Dictionary of Ulster Place-names, the name "Beaghmore" comes from the Irish "an Bheitheach Mhór," which means "big place of birch trees." This name shows that the area was once a forest before Neolithic farmers cleared the land.

The stone circles, alignments, and cairns at Beaghmore are protected historic sites in the townland of Beaghmore, within the Cookstown District Council area, with map coordinates in the H684 842 region. Specific monuments include a cairn (H6872 8470), another cairn (H6856 8472), stone circles, alignments, and cairns (H684 842), a round cairn with standing stones called Bradley's Cairn (H6830 8401), and a cairn and alignment (H6863 8431). All these sites are officially listed as Scheduled Historic Monuments.

Excavation

The site was found by George Barnett in the late 1930s while cutting peat, when 1,269 stones were discovered. It was partially dug up between 1945 and 1949 and became the responsibility of the government. It was also excavated again in 1965. Hearths and flint tools were found and dated to 2900–2600 BC using carbon dating. Some stone rows cross over the crumbled walls of field structures from the Neolithic period. When one of the cairns was excavated, a polished porcellanite axe was found, which could have come from the Tievebulliagh axe factory, located about 70 miles away in County Antrim. The largest cairn had a central pit that contained an oak branch.

Features

There are seven small stone circles of different sizes, with six of them forming pairs. There are also twelve cairns and ten rows of stones. Each circle has a diameter between 10 and 20 meters. These circles are connected to older burial cairns and stone rows that point toward them. The stones in the circles are short, with most less than 0.5 meters tall. The circles are shaped unevenly, which suggests they may be linked to the edges of large ancient tombs. A common feature of the stone rows is a pattern where short rows of tall stones are placed next to much longer rows of small stones. These rows extend from the circles toward the northeast direction.

Function

Archaeologists have found that the site covers an ancient farming area from the Neolithic period. It is believed that the stones may have been placed there because the soil became less fertile and peat spread into the area. Another idea suggests that Beaghmore was a large ceremonial site built between 1500 and 800 BC.