Cloghacorr (1905). — Baile Na Bó

The monument is on level ground c. 600m SW of the portal tomb (DG025-017-) in the adjacent townland of Errarooey Beg. It stands 400m E of the Ray River and 1.4km from the sea on the strip of coastal farmland stretching from Ballyness Bay to Hom Head. Muckish Mountain dominates the skyline to the S. The main part of the monument consists of a gallery preceded at the W by a full court of roughly circular outline. This structure stands in the substantial remains of a cairn. Approximately 6m E of this cairn and on the same axis as the gallery three tall orthostats, the remains of a chamber, stand at the NW edge of a grass-grown mound. A further 2.5m to the E, again on the same axis, is a smaller mound on which are a tall orthostat and a prostrate slab. The large cairn to the W, considerably overgrown, is of irregular outline. A section of it to the N of the front half of the gallery has been robbed, and elsewhere, most noticeably along the court perimeter, it has been used as a dump for field stones. It now measures 28m in overall length (E-W) and 13m in maximum width. It reaches a height of 1.5m in the gallery area. Five stones exposed at its NE comer and another midway along its southern side are of uncertain status. Two set stones next to each other at the cairn edge to the N of the court may be kerbstones. The western one is 0.3m high, and the eastern is 0.6m high. The smaller mound to the E of the cairn is subrectangular in outline and measures c. 7.5m by 6m by 1m high. The mound at the E end of the complex measures 2.5m N-S by 4m E-W and is 0.5m high. The court is 6m long and 5.5m wide. A rough field wall (not on plan) partly obscures its SW sector. It is bounded by at least fifteen orthostats, two of which also serve as jambs at the entrance to the gallery. These stand c. 1m apart. The northern one is now split into four separate uprights but when intact was c. 1m long and 0.5m thick. It is l.1m high. The southern jamb is 0.9m high. Beyond this are three courtstones close together. The first of these rises 0.35m above the jamb; the second is 0.3m lower than the first and the same height as the third, which is set with its long axis at right angles to the perimeter of the court. Approximately 0.75m beyond this, two courtstones of similar height measure 0.45m and 0.35m in exposed height. The next courtstone is 0.3m taller than the last two. Beyond this the tops of two courtstones, c. 0.8m apart, protrude just above the surface of a dump of field rubble. An orthostat standing at an angle to the northern one measures 0.6m in exposed height. Approximately 1.6m beyond this is an arc of three contiguous stones on the N side of the court. The tops of these are level, and each is c. 0.6m in exposed height. There is a displaced stone outside the easternmost of the three. Beyond the easternmost courtstone is a gap 0.9m wide between it and the next. The latter flanks the northern entrance jamb and is 1.6m high. A fragment broken from its inner face stands just inside it. The court lacks a readily identifiable entrance. However, the stone set at an angle to the perimeter and more or less opposite the front of the gallery may mark its position, and the transversely set stone flanking a gap midway along the S side of the court suggests the possibility of lateral entry. The front chamber of the gallery is c. 2.5m long and just over 2m wide. Two orthostats form the S side, but only one survives at the N. The last is 1.6m high. The outer orthostat at the S rises 0.5m above the entrance jamb. The inner one is 0.1m lower than the outer. A displaced slab within the chamber measures 1.2m by 0.5m by 0.4m. The segmenting jambs separating the front chamber from the rest of the gallery are transversely set and stand 0.85m apart. They are substantially obscured. They are around the same height as the sidestone on the N side of the front chamber. The inner sidestone on the S side of the front chamber extends beyond the southern segmenting jamb and forms part of the side of the second chamber. Apart from this sidestone, only one other possible remnant of the second chamber is visible. This is a large slab, perhaps a corbel, protruding from the top of the cairn, more or less in line with the S side of the gallery. It measures 2m by 1m and is at least 0.4m thick. Approximately 0.7m NE of this is a displaced stone on the cairn. It measures 1.6m by 0.5m. Two of the three orthostats forming the middle element of this monument stand opposite each other and lean inward slightly. The space between them narrows from 1.25m at the E to 0.8m at the W. The southern one, set with its flat face inward, is 1.4m high, and the northern one is 1.15m high. The third orthostat stands E of and beside this and rises 1.3m above it. The space between the opposed orthostats, which appear to represent the sides of a chamber, has been dug to a depth of c. 0.7m. A flint flake was found here in 1989. Four flint flakes had already been picked up in a ploughed field beside the monument in 1981 (Ó Nualláin 1983a). The lone orthostat set in the small eastern mound is 1.8m high. The prostrate slab at the western end of this mound is partly concealed. It measures 1.6m by at least 0.7m and is 0.35m thick. The original form of this complex monument is not altogether clear. It seems that the full court at the W led to a gallery of at least two chambers. The middle structure resembles the ruins of a portal tomb chamber, and the large surviving orthostat in the eastern mound may represent a chamber of similar type. The three elements here are linked in their adherence to an E-W axis, but other aspects of their relationship remain unclear. Fagan 1845-8, book 3, 8-9; OS Revision Name Book, sheet 25 (1847-9), 43 (sketch profile of the two eastern elements); de Valera 1960, 105, DG. 6 (plan); Killanin and Duignan 1962, 298; Killanin and Duignan 1967, 300; Ó Nualláin 1968a, 294; Ó Nualláin 1983a, 16, no. 3 (plan); SMR 1987, 25:46, 25:47; Ó Nualláin 1989, 117; RMP 1995, 25:46. 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).