What is recorded here

Giant's Grave Fort is a circular earthen ringfort in County Donegal, Ireland, where a low bank and fosse still mark the western edge despite the eastern half fading into wet ground. The name suggests a buried giant, yet Thomas Fagan found no grave or memory of one, exposing the danger of projecting myth onto ordinary stones. People may have lived inside this small enclosure before the land swallowed its shape, turning a human home into a canvas for fantasy.

A circular-shaped ringfort is indicated in this field on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey 6-inch map with the text 'Fort' indicated on the map to the left of the ringfort. On this same 6-inch map the words 'Giants Grave' are written in Gothic Script to the right of the same ringfort. Today the remains of this fort can still be seen in this field which is depicted as 'Giant's Grave' and 'Fort' on the original OS 6-inch map (1835-6), but is not shown on later editions. According to Thomas Fagan (1845-8), this fort was referred to by some in the locality as the 'Giant's Grave'. He added that there was no trace of a grave at the site nor any recollection of one. There seems little reason to suppose that there was ever a megalithic tomb at this location. Fagan 1845-8, book 14, 20; Borlase 1897, 236, Tirhugh no. 1; Ó Nualláin 1983a, 48, no. 165 (under Golard); SMR 1987, 100:7; RMP 1995, 100:7 Internal diam. 34m A small circular enclosure surrounded by a low earthen bank, a fosse and an outer bank. Only the W side survives, the E half being difficult to trace. The interior is flat and wet except for a low mound at the centre. It is situated in low, wet ground on the N bank of a stream, a hill rising steeply to the N.

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