The Dundrum meteorite
A warm stone found half buried in a potato drill in Tipperary, now on show in Dublin.
Key facts
- Fell
- 12 August 1865
- Where
- Dundrum, County Tipperary
- Type
- H5 ordinary chondrite
- Mass
- about 2.3 kg
- Where it is kept
- Geological Museum, Trinity College Dublin
- Nation today
- Republic of Ireland
At seven in the evening of 12 August 1865, three men working near Dundrum in County Tipperary heard a sharp clap like a cannon, followed by a buzzing sound. They found a stone about 40 metres away, half buried in a ridge of a potato field and still warm. It weighed about 2.3 kilograms and had a roughly pyramid shape, suggesting it had broken from a larger stone in the air.
The landowner, Lord Hawarden, gave it to the geological museum of Trinity College Dublin, where it is still displayed. The National Museum of Ireland has a plaster replica.
Dundrum is an H5 ordinary chondrite, like Mooresfort, which fell in the same county 55 years earlier.
Did you know?
County Tipperary has had two meteorite falls, Mooresfort in 1810 and Dundrum in 1865.
The stone's flat faces show where it broke away from a larger mass during its flight.
Find out more
- Dundrum in the catalogue: the official class and recorded mass
- H chondrites: what this kind of meteorite is and where it comes from
- All the meteorites of Britain and Ireland, with a map
- Found something in the UK or Ireland? What to do next
Nearest other British and Irish meteorites
- Mooresfort 10 August 1810 · about 25 km away
- Limerick 10 September 1813 · about 50 km away
- Leighlinbridge 28 November 1999 · about 75 km away
- Pettiswood 1779 · about 120 km away