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Giants Grave (Site of)

Megalithic tomb

What is recorded here

Giants Grave (Site of) is a megalithic tomb in Moytirra East, County Sligo, Ireland. The destroyed monument stood on rocky pasture just over 200m W of a court tomb (SL035-079----). It appeared on the 1838 OS 6-inch map but vanished before Wood-Martin visited later in the century. He learned the tomb matched the eastern court tomb in plan.
This destroyed monument stood on rocky pasture just over 200m W of a court tomb (SL035-079----). The tomb is marked on the 1838 OS 6-inch map but had been demolished when Wood-Martin (1883-4, 458-60, no. 20; 1888, 180-82, no. 2) visited the area later in the same century. He was informed that this tomb was similar in plan to the court tomb (SL035-079----) 200m to E. Some large stones visible in a fence at the site in 1956 may have originally formed part of the monument (Ó Nualláin 1989, 68, no. 109). An account in 1836, which seems to refer to this tomb, describes it as '... now eighteen or twenty feet [c. 6m] long, and about five feet [c. 1.5m] broad, having flags fixed around it' and claims that it had been opened some years earlier when human bones were reportedly found in it (OSL, 171-4). The report also records a claim that a 'golden breast plate' was found either in the tomb or nearby. The indications are that this destroyed monument was a court tomb. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Sligo' compiled by Ursula Egan, Elizabeth Byrne, Mary Sleeman with Sheila Ronan and Connie Murphy (Dublin Stationery Office, 2005). Date of upload: 18 January 2008 See linked document with details from Seán Ó Nualláin, Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland. Volume V. County Sligo. (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1989)
Portal dolmen; early Neolithic to Bronze Age. Its location near a court tomb suggests it was part of a broader funerary landscape, reflecting ritual practices of the period.

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What survives
Recorded monument

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