Ritual site - holy/saint's stone

The National Monuments Service's description

On a hilltop on the S shore of Lough Derg. The nature of this monument, named 'St. Dabog's Chair' on the 1838 and 1906 OS 6-inch maps, is uncertain.

According to Margaret Stokes (1882), there was a 'Giant's Grave' at Carn. Her small-scale distribution map places it a short distance SE of Lough Derg. It is not known to what site she was referring, but it may have been the feature named 'St. Davog's Chair' on OS 6-inch sheet 101. This is in the townland of Carn. It has been described as consisting of a stone seat in front of a grave-like opening but may no longer survive (Lacy 1983, 282).
In the OS Memoir (1835) there is an annotated drawing of a feature named 'St. Deavog's Chair'. This is assigned to a townland named Seadavog Mountain, which, like the townland of Cam, adjoins the southern end of Lough Derg. This drawing shows a small, subrectangular, box-like feature apparently set into the ground. The illustration indicates that it was formed by four stones, one at each of the sides and ends. The recorded measurements show it to have been c. 0.75m long, 0.4m wide at one end, narrowing to 0.2m at the other, and 0.6m deep. Apparently people knelt in this to pray, with feet to the broader end, knees to the narrower end and elbows resting on the sides. There may be two sites named 'St. D(e)avog's Chair' or simply confusion about location. The name assigned to the site links it to the famous pilgrimage centre on Lough Derg.
As the supposed 'Giant's Grave' referred to by Stokes cannot reliably be identified, its nature remains uncertain.
OS Memoirs, Templecarn parish (1835) [23]; M. Stokes 1882, 17; Lacy 1983, 280-82, no. 1592.

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, 217, no. 112).

Located on the summit of a knoll, overlooking the S shore of Lough Derg, in rough, gorse- and heather-covered terrain, broken by rock outcropping. The hill was formerly under forestry, the slopes are dotted with tree stumps, and the ground surface is uneven. Tracts of forestry still stand to N and SW.
A concentration (c. 5m NW–SE; c. 2–3m NE–SW) of large and medium-sized stones crowns the narrow summit of the knoll. The highest portion of the concentration forms a low, gently domed stony rise (diam. c. 2m; H c. 0.45m), largely covered by heather and moss. It may be the remnants of a small cairn. On the N side it merges with a sloping rock surface which appears to be natural bedrock. On the SW side, and at a slightly lower level, there is a subrectangular arrangement of stones. It consists of two large stones (L c. 0.75-0.8m; T c. 0.5m; H c. 0.5m) flanking the long sides at E and W of a small open space or cavity (c. 75m N–S; c. 0.2-0.3m E–W; D c. 0.4-0.5m). At its N end the cavity backs on to the gently rising slope of the domed rise mentioned above, and the S end of the cavity is defined by two or three smaller stones. There is a parallel line of low, moss-covered stones on the E side, and other stones protrude randomly from the heather on all sides.
It is impossible to determine to what extent this might be a deliberately constructed feature; it may simply be a random arrangement of bedrock. It is likely however, that this is the feature known as ‘St. Dabog’s Chair’, which formed part of the pilgrimage round at Lough Derg.

Attached images:
DG101-011----_01.JPG Low stony rise crowning summit of hill, from S
DG101-011----_02.JPG Low stony rise crowning summit of hill, from N
DG101-011----_03.JPG Subrectangular arrangement of stones, from S
DG101-011----_04.JPG Subrectangular arrangement of stones, from N
DG101-011----_05.JPG Subrectangular arrangement of stones, from S

Date of revised upload: 19 November 2019