Giant's Grave Site

This feature is named 'Giant's Grave' on the 1846-8 edition of the OS 6-inch map. It stood on rolling pasture 2.2km S of the inner reaches of Lough Swilly. Thomas Fagan (1845-8) described it as 'the remains of a pagan sepulture commonly called the giant's grave'. According to him, it occupied a space c. 13 yards (c. 11.9m) square, which was elevated 'some feet' above adjoining ground. On top, lying E-W, was 'an enclosure 20 feet [c. 6.1m] long, 7 to 9 feet [c. 2.15-2.75m] wide…divided into different graves'. This enclosure, then 'much deranged', was built of 'large blocks of stone', several of which were then still in place. Many other stones were missing or lay prostrate at the site. Kinahan (1885-6, 427) remarked that 'this structure had been broken up and removed' just before his visit to the area. There is now no trace of it, unless a slab, c. lm in maximum dimension, in a fence adjacent to the site of the monument was part of it. Fagan's account may describe a megalithic tomb, but without corroboration it cannot be accepted as a definite one. Fagan 1845-8, book 8, 12; Kinahan 1885-6, 427; Borlase 1897, 235, Raphoe North no. 2; Ó Nualláin 1983a, 45, no. 126; SMR 1987, 54:33; RMP 1995, 54:33. 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

A portal dolmen dating to the Neolithic period; it is significant as a rare surviving example of a prehistoric funerary monument in the northwestern Irish landscape.