Ballymore Lower Tomb near Dunfanaghy

The monument, on a slight rise amid pasture, lies just W of the road between Dunfanaghy and Creeslough and is c. 700m NW of Back Strand at the inner reaches of Sheep Haven Bay. There is an extensive outlook along a river valley to the SW as far as Muckish Mountain c. 6km away. The monument is greatly ruined, and the scant remains are difficult to interpret but seem to represent a chamber or gallery aligned NE-SW. It is described as if it lay E-W. The tallest stone, 1.6m high, is at the NE. Immediately S of the W end of this and at right angles to it is a set stone, 0.15m high. This may be the butt of a taller stone. A slab, 0.9m by 0.55m by 0.lm thick, leaning against the tall stone does not seem to be in situ. Two more set stones stand 1.5m SW of the group just described. Both lie E-W. The eastern one is 0.2m high, and the western one, overlapping the W end of the eastern and 0.2m to the S, is 0.15m high. Both may be remnants of taller stones. A slab, 3.1m by 1.5m by 0.4m thick, overlies the eastern one. This slab leans southward and rests on a stone that itself may have collapsed northward. The latter is c. 1m long by 0.2m thick and if upright would be c. 0.75m high. There are no discernible traces of a mound around the structure. Accounts of the monument in OS documents from the middle of the 19th century indicate that it was then in much the same condition as now. The remains here are clearly those of a megalithic tomb but are insufficient to permit classification. Fagan 1845-8, book 2, 19; OS Revision Name Book, sheet 26 (1847-9), 9; Ó Nualláin 1983a, 44, no. 117; SMR 1987, 26:3; Ó Nualláin 1989, 142; RMP 1995, 26:3. 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).