What is recorded here

Cloghtogle Cairn sits inside St. Buchan's Burial Ground in County Donegal, where a small cairn and upright slab rise above an irregular stone platform. The name Cloghtogle may have deceived early surveyors into expecting a grand megalithic tomb, yet the place remains a quiet burial ground marked by simple grave-slabs. It is the kind of spot where people died, were remembered, and were left alone under the sky.

This feature is mentioned in some of the unpublished documents of the original OS 6-inch survey (1834), but no details are provided about its nature. It is not shown on later editions of the OS 6-inch map, where instead a space incorporating the position shown on the 1834 map is identified as 'St. Buchan's Burial Ground'. This burial ground is an irregular platform, measuring 23m N-S by 31.3m E-W, at the highest point of which is a small cairn. On top of the cairn is an upright slab, one of several presumed grave-markers (Lacy 1983). There seems little reason to suppose that the term 'Cloghtogle' in this instance referred to a megalithic tomb. OS Name Book, Clonmany parish (1834), 20; OS Memoir, Clonmany parish (1834), 16; Borlase 1897, 229, Inishowen East no. 1; Lacy 1983, 282-3, no. 1594; SMR 1987, 4:48; Colhoun 1995, 13, no. 4/21; RMP 1995, 4:48. 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

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