What is recorded here

No fairies built Dundrean, though men called it so because the shape resisted ordinary explanation. A round platform thirty-one metres across still stands in Donegal pasture, its earthen edge dropping four metres into a hollow cut from a natural hillock. The eastern gap may have been an entrance, and the wide view reached across the marsh channel that once isolated Inishowen. People may have stood there to watch weather, trade or danger come from the water, while later imaginations filled the empty chamber with fairy life.

Internal diam. 31.7m. A subcircular platform enclosed by an earthen bank surviving up to .75m in height but which has disappeared in places. The drop from the top of the bank to the ground level is c. 4m and seems to result from the scarping and infilling of a natural hillock. There is a possible entrance on the E side. There is no evidence for the outer bank shown on the 1st and 2nd editions of the OS 6-inch maps. The interior is level. It is situated in good pasture land with good views, overlooking the former channel of marshland which isolated the Inishowen peninsula. McNeill (1975, 52 No. 72) suggests this site as a 'probable' motte. The above description was derived from the 'Archaeological Survey of County Donegal. A description of the field antiquities of the County from the Mesolithic Period to the 17th century.' Compiled by: Brian Lacey with Eamon Cody, Claire Cotter, Judy Cuppage, Noel Dunne, Vincent Hurley, Celie O'Rahilly, Paul Walsh and Seán Ó Nualláin (Lifford: Donegal County Council, 1983). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated. Date of upload: 22 September 2008

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