Megalithic tomb - unclassified

The National Monuments Service's description

The various editions of the OS 6-inch map differ regarding the location of this feature. On the original OS six- inch map (1834) it is shown 50m SE of, and on the 1848 edition it is 90m SW of, the position marked on the 1905 edition. The feature in question is named 'Giant's Grave' on all three editions. The position shown on the 1848 edition is in the adjoining townland of Kilwarry, but in 1834, before a slight boundary change, it lay in Claggan townland. This supposed 'Giant's Grave' is mentioned in two documents of the 1834 survey, but no details are provided. According to an entry in a Name Book relating to the 1848 edition of the map, the feature named 'Giant's Grave' on the 1834 map was an 'old altar where mass used to be said about forty years since'. It claimed that at the position shown on the 1848 map there was a grave 'of a circular form' but that it could 'scarcely be traced'. It appears from this that little if anything then survived at the spot. The feature identified on the 1905 edition of the map, according to an entry in an accompanying Name Book (1903), was 'a cairn of stones supposed to have been the burial place of giants'. No remains are visible at the position indicated on the 1848 edition of the map, which is on level ground close to the shore of Columbkille Lough. The positions identified on the 1834 and 1905 editions of the map are on a densely overgrown slope rising above the lough. There is a small heap of slabs of uncertain origin at the position shown on the 1905 map, but it was not possible to identify the feature shown on the 1834 map. Kinahan (1879-88b, 475; 1889, 281) failed to find this site toward the end of the 19th century. There is no convincing evidence that a megalithic tomb ever stood at any of the three locations.
OS Memoirs, Aughnish and Tullyfern parishes (1834), 45; OS Name Book, Aughnish and Tullyfern parishes (1834), book 2, 26; OS Revision Name Book, sheet 36 (1848), 26; Kinahan 1879-88b, 475 ('Giant's Grave'); Kinahan 1889, 281 ('Giant's Grave' under Kilwarry); Borlase 1897, 232, Kilmacrenan no. 17; OS 1:2,500 Name Book, sheet 36 (1903), 33; Ó Nualláin 1983a, 47, no. 18; SMR 1987, 36:12; RMP 1995, 36:12.

The above description was published in the 'Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland. Volume VI, County Donegal.' Compiled by: Eamon Cody (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2002).

Date of upload: 22 September 2008