The cairn will now become a recorded monument on the Historic Record of Northern Ireland.

The discovery was made as part of the PEACEPLUS Protecting Shared Waters Project, which is piloting nature-based solutions to enhance water quality in these two vital drinking water catchments. Senior Peatlands Officer with Ulster Wildlife Rory McKenna was scrutinising the LiDAR imagery of the site while refining the peatland restoration plan. He noticed a strange circular feature that was raised up above the ground. Rory immediately got in touch with NI Historic Environment Division (HED) and sent through the imagery. 

Ulster Wildlife and staff from HED carried out a closer inspection and confirmed a previously unknown Neolithic or Bronze Age burial cairn (3000-5000 years old) in good condition. This will now become a recorded monument on the Historic Record of Northern Ireland.

Led by NI Water, this work is part the €7.5 million Protecting Shared Waters project supported by PEACEPLUS, a programme managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) and endorsed by both DAERA in Northern Ireland and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in Ireland - marking a significant step forward in collaborative water management across the island of Ireland.

To slow the flow of water into the catchments and reduce nutrient and pollutant run-off, several hundred peat dams, several thousand meters of peat bank reprofiling and hundreds of meters of bunding have been completed at The Murrins by contractor C & B McErlean and led by local nature conservation charity Ulster Wildlife.