What is recorded here

Druids Altar is a small portal tomb beside White Lough in County Cavan, where two tall stones still lean across a chamber barely large enough for one person to lie down. Its roofstone slopes instead of fitting neatly, as if the earth shifted or the builders stopped before finishing. The missing backstone and tiny uncertain stone beside the chamber suggest the place was never complete in the way modern museums prefer. It remains a narrow door of stone, open at one end and closed at the other, waiting for someone honest enough to ask what it excludes.

Situated 350m E of White Lough on undulating ground. This small chamber, about 2m long, lacks a backstone. There are two portal-stones 0.8m apart at SSE, each about 1.7m high. The chamber sides are of single stones, that at E 1.5m high and the other somewhat lower. Just N of the western one there is a small set stone of uncertain function. A roofstone rests in a sloping position on the western portal-stone and both sidestones. (de Valera and Ó Nualláin 1972, 130, No. 30) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cavan' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1995). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 22 December 2008 See linked document with details from Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin, Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland. Volume III. Counties Galway, Roscommon, Leitrim, Longford, Westmeath, Laoighis, Offaly, Kildare, Cavan. (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1972).

Portal dolmen; likely Neolithic in origin. Its partial survival offers insight into early megalithic construction techniques in the region.

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.