Former site of Knockergrana Court Tomb

This monument, like the court tomb in Laraghirril (Dg. 78), which lies 1.5km to the W, stands in the relatively low-lying plain of good agricultural land stretching from Trawbreaga Bay on the W side of the Inishowen peninsula to Tremone Bay on its NE flank. It is on a slight fall of ground 2.8km S of the village of Culdaff. The monument, orientated approximately E-W, has been considerably damaged. It consists of the ruins of an unroofed segmented gallery, now almost 10m in overall length, set in a long mound. According to R.S. Young (1897), the gallery had been covered by a cairn of earth and rubble until it was exposed by the tenant when searching for stones. There are a considerable number of sizeable slabs and variously sized fragments of others lying at the site, particularly at the eastern end of the gallery. These are not shown on the plan. According to local information, dynamite was used to dislodge stones from the structure in the early part of the 20th century. Boreholes visible in three of the larger blocks of stone seem to confirm this. The mound measures c. 30m E-W and narrows from c. 13m at the W to 10m close to its E end. It reaches a maximum height of c. 1m. Apart from spreads of stone near the gallery, it is largely grass grown. In 1982, when the plan published here was made, an extensive dump of material derived from field clearance obscured the western end of the mound. Since then similar material has been dumped in smaller amounts at other points adjacent to or on the perimeter of the mound. The gallery appears to have consisted of at least three chambers. That at the E is largely destroyed, and all that survives are three orthostats of its northern side. The easternmost of these is 0.6m in exposed height. The second rises 0.4m above the top of the first. The third lies 0.6m W of and is 0.25m taller than the second. It partly overlaps the segmentation between the eastern and middle chambers. This segmentation is marked by a jamb placed longitudinally inside the line of the N side of the gallery, with an inclined sillstone set at right angles to its E end. The jamb is 0.8m high and rises 0.45m above the sill. There is sufficient space between the end of the sillstone and the S side of the gallery to accommodate a second jamb. The middle chamber is c. 3.5m long and 1.7m wide. Three orthostats form each side. On the N side the easternmost orthostat and the stone next to it are the same height as the segmenting jamb already described, but both may originally have been taller, as they appear to be broken. The third orthostat on this side is a tall pillar-like stone that rises 0.6m above the other two. The heights of the orthostats on the S side of this chamber from E to W are 0.95m, 0.7m and 1.2m. A displaced slab (not on plan) lies to the S of this chamber. The jambs dividing the middle chamber from the western chamber are set longitudinally inside the gallery walls. These are 0.8m apart but are only partly opposite each other. The southern one is 1.6m high. The northern one leans southward across the gallery and if upright would be the same height as the southern. The sole surviving sidestone of the western chamber adjoins the leaning jamb. It is 0.9m high. A large displaced slab, measuring at least 1.7m by 1.6m and 0.4m thick, lies across this ruined chamber. Its southern end rests on a stone protruding at an angle from the cairn material exposed here. Approximately 1.5m WSW of this is a firmly set stone 0.6m high. The status of these two stones is not clear. According to 'Maghtochair' (1867, 15), a large roofstone then covered one of the three chambers, but he did not specify which one. The large roofstone is also mentioned in an OS Name Book of 1848. Whether there were more than the three chambers now apparent in the gallery cannot be established, nor is it known at which end the entrance lay. OS Revision Name Book, sheet 12 (1848), 48; 'Maghtochair' 1867, 15 ('Cara or Cloughtogal'); R.S. Young 1897, 199 ('near...Kindroghed...rude sepulchral tumulus'); A.I. Young 1929, 8 ('at Cara'); Swan 1949, 21 ('Cara Cloughtogal'); de Valera 1960, 104, DG. 2 (plan); Killanin and Duignan 1967, 193; Ó Nualláin 1983a, 24, no. 29; SMR 1987, 12:6; Ó Nualláin 1989, 117; Colhoun 1995, 43-4, plate 7 (c); RMP 1995, 12:6. 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 See linked document with details from Eamon Cody, Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland. Volume VI. County Donegal. (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2002)