The story of Knockmany
Knockmany Passage Tomb was built during the Neolithic period, around 3000 BC, by farming communities who raised great stone monuments across Ireland. It belongs to the passage-tomb tradition that produced Loughcrew in County Meath and the Boyne Valley tombs of Newgrange and Knowth, and its carvings link it directly to that world. Only the orthostats — the upright stones of the chamber — survive of the original structure.
What makes Knockmany stand out is its art. At least six of the chamber stones bear carved decoration, and three are highly decorated with concentric circles, spirals, zigzags and lozenges. These are not random marks but a shared symbolic language used across the great passage tombs of Ireland five thousand years ago, and Knockmany holds one of the finest collections of it in Ulster.
By the 1950s the stones had been left exposed to the weather for centuries. In 1959 the Ministry of Finance for Northern Ireland built a concrete chamber and earthen mound over them, roughly the size and shape of the cairn that would originally have covered the tomb, with an entrance gate and a rectangular skylight set into the top so the carvings could still be seen and lit.
In local tradition the hill is tied to Áine, or Anya, a queen said to be buried at the summit — which is why the monument is also known as Anya's Tomb or Annia's Cove. Today the site is in state care, managed through the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, with the surrounding forest and car park looked after by Mid Ulster District Council.