Dergs Grave

This monument stands on a slight E-W-aligned ridge, on which there is outcropping rock, in rolling pasture c. 7.5km NE of Ballyshannon. There is a good outlook from the site. The tomb consists of three stones, two beside each other, and the third 1.5m N of and opposite the eastern of the other two. There is a poorly defined, slightly raised stony area to the W, possibly the remains of a cairn (not on plan). The western of the two stones at the S is 1.25m high. It rises 0.4m above the top of the adjoining stone, which rests against it. The eastern stone is skewed to the N from the line described by the western and leans in the same direction. The lone stone at the N is 1.3m high. The three stones are of split-boulder type. The split faces of the two at the S are opposed to that of the one at the N. Approximately 10m to the SW is a large boulder measuring 1.4m by 0.6m by 1m high in a field fence. This may have been taken from the tomb. The monument was in its present state when Thomas Fagan (1845-8) visited it in 1847. He recorded that many stones had been removed from it within local memory. The surviving stones, clearly the remains of a megalithic tomb, may represent the Nand S sides of a chamber. Fagan 1845-8, book 15, 30; Ó Nualláin 1983a, 44, no. 119 (plan); SMR 1987, 104:10; Ó Nualláin 1989, 142; RMP 1995, 104:10. 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 See linked document with details from Eamon Cody, Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland. Volume VI. County Donegal. (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2002)