Carnaghan Cist and Standing Stones

This monument is on Inch Island in Lough Swilly. It stands on a terrace on the S-facing slope of Inch Top and overlooks the inner reaches of the lough. Fair pasture in the vicinity of the site gives way, closeby to the N, to rougher ground broken by occasional rock outcrops. The tomb now consists of two tall portal-stones at the NE and, 2.5m to the SW, a low backstone. Approximately 0.7m NW of the backstone is a cist covered by two superimposed slabs, and 0.5m E of the cist a slab rests in a horizontal position on four low stones. These features stand in a low grassy mound, subrectangular in outline, measuring 10.4m N-S by 10m E-W. A hedge-grown wall runs along the western edge of the mound. There is a facing of dry-walling along the southern half of the eastern edge of the mound. The wall and facing are relatively modern features. The mound is 0.7m high at the dry-walling and 0.4m high elsewhere. There were three mature trees at the northern edge of the mound and two at the S in 1982 when the tomb was surveyed.