Cairn — unclassified in Caoldroim Íochtarach

This site, according to Thomas Fagan (1845-8), was known locally as 'Dermot and Grania's Bed' and then consisted of two slabs, one standing upright, which was 31/2 feet (c. 1.05m) long, 8 inches (c. 0.2m) thick and 41/2 feet (c. 1.4m) high, and the other, somewhat smaller, leaning against it. A 'few' other stones lay prostrate here; there were others on edge in the ground; and all appeared to have originally lain within an enclosure 25 yards (c. 22.85m) in diameter. This site was excavated in 1976. According to the excavator's account (Kilbride-Jones 1997), a rubble-cored wall, faced internally and externally, formed a round enclosure 23m in diameter. At the S the excavation revealed a chamber filled with midden material within the thickness of the wall. At the NE there was a gap in the wall, and 3m S of it were the two stones noted by Fagan. These still stand at the site. The excavator has suggested that they stood as opposed sidestones of a small megalithic chamber. According to him, there was a socket behind each of these and a further one forming a back to the chamber at the W. Immediately E of and in front of the supposed chamber the excavator identified a small 'forecourt' delimited by sockets. Two periods of activity were identified in the enclosure, the earlier represented by sherds of Western Neolithic pottery, by a plano-convex flint knife and possibly by sherds of coarse pottery. The later period was represented by spindle whorls of stone, a bone needle, a bracelet and ring, both of chlorite, and a heavily corroded iron object. Animal bones and piles of shells were recovered from different parts of the enclosure, and a small amount of cremated human bone was also found there. The site, substantially obscured by furze bushes (in 1994), looks like a ruined cashel with an entrance-like feature at the S consisting of the two stones described by Fagan, one leaning against the other. The nature of the supposed megalithic chamber with forecourt identified by Kilbride-Jones is uncertain. The context of the undoubted Neolithic activity at the site is unclear. Fagan 1845-8, book 4, 22; Kilbride-Jones 1977; Lacy 1983, 52, no. 194; SMR 1987, 24:15; RMP 1995, 24:15; Kilbride-Jones 1997. 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