Eskaheen Portal Tomb

The monument is 3km NW of Muff village and 3km from the W side of the inner end of Lough Foyle. It stands on boggy ground on a slight S-facing slope just below the lower levels of Eskaheen Mountain. There are extensive views to the S along the inner reaches of Lough Foyle. Closeby, to the E and N, reclaimed land provides fair pasture. The monument, described here as if it lay W-E, consists of a chamber, open to the WNW, standing almost 6m inside the western end of a long cairn in which some sizeable stones are evident. A thin layer of peat partly covers the cairn, which is 25m long (E-W), reaches a maximum width of 14m near the broad, rounded, western end and from there narrows to less than 5m at the eastern end. It attains a maximum height of 0.7m at the S. A channel, 0.5m wide, has been cleared in the cairn immediately S and E of the chamber, and a farm trackway (not on plan) crosses the eastern end. The chamber was c. 2m long and is up to 1.4m wide. It is overlain by an enormous roofstone that has slipped to the ground at the N, thus raising its S side clear of the structure. Two portal-stones, 0.3-0.5m apart, stand at the front of the chamber. The collapse of the great roofstone has broken the northern one and caused both to lean southward. The long axis of each is skewed somewhat from that of the chamber. Whether this is an original feature or was caused by the displacement of the great roofstone is unclear. A low stone, possibly broken from the top of the northern portal-stone, lies just W of the same. Beyond this detached piece, and 0.8m in front of the northern portal-stone, is a large upright stone. The sides and back of the chamber survive intact. A single stone forms each side, and closure is effected by a gabled backstone at the E. There are two superimposed pad-stones or corbels overlying the junction of the northern sidestone and the backstone. A large slab, one end on the ground, leans against the outer face of the southern sidestone and the adjoining end of the backstone. This appears to be a slipped pad-stone or corbel. The roofstone now rests on the northern portal-stone, on the piece thought to be detached from it and on top of the upper of the two corbels or pad-stones at the NE corner of the chamber. It also bears against the inner faces of both the southern portal-stone and the stone set in front of the northern portal-stone. The northern portal-stone, overlapped by the adjacent sidestone, would stand 0.9m high if upright. The stone beside it to the W, which, as noted, may have been detached from its top, measures 0.9m by 0.6m by 0.5m high. The southern portal-stone would stand 1.9m high if upright. There is a vertical split in this stone close to its southern face (indicated by a pecked line on the plan). The stone in front of the northern portal-stone now leans northward and is 1.2m high. The opposed sidestones of the chamber have flat inner and sloping outer faces, and both lean inward. That to the N, its outer face largely concealed, is 0.9m high. The southern one is also 0.9m high. The backstone is set inside the end of the northern sidestone and beyond the end of the southern one. It is 1.1m high and leans inward slightly. It rises c. 0.3m above the two sidestones. It has a straight inner face, and externally its top half slopes outward. The lower corbel at the NE corner of the chamber measures 1.25m by 0.6m by at least 0.2m thick, and the upper measures 1.8m by 0.8m by 0.25m thick. The leaning slab outside the SE corner of the chamber measures 1.7m by 1.6m by 0.25m thick. The great roofstone is 5m long, narrows from 3.7m wide at the back to 2m close to the front and is 1.5m in greatest thickness, which it attains at around mid-length. A section of its underside, 0.5m thick, has split from the rest of the stone at the W. OS Revision Name Book, sheet 39 (1848), 11; Anon. 1915, 209 ('clock mór' may refer); Colhoun 1949, 113-14 (photograph), 116 (the 'Morton God' dolmen); Swan 1949, 35-6; Ó Nualláin 1983a, 30, no. 53; Ó Nualláin 1983b, 94, Donegal no. 10; SMR 1987, 39:5; Ó Nualláin 1989, 124; Colhoun 1995, 92, no. 39/4; RMP 1995, 39:5. 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)