Dermot and Granias Bed — Convoy Demesne

This monument is 2.2km NW of Convoy village on a level patch of ground broken by rock outcrops. It commands an extensive outlook to the E. The site is overlooked from the W by a sharply rising, gorse-grown ridge not more than 30m away. Immediately E of the monument is an abrupt rise in ground level of 0.5m to 0.8m. The lower courses of a ruined masonry building stand immediately to the NE of the site. The monument is greatly ruined. Two opposed slabs, each aligned NNE-SSW, are in place. They are 0.9m apart at ground level. The eastern one, 1.8m high, leans away from the western, which is 1m high. The latter stone may have been taller. The eastern stone rests against the top of a slight upright stone 0.2m E of its base, which is 0.3m long, 0.15m thick and 0.7m high. It is uncertain whether this is a structural stone, and it is not hatched on the plan. This small stone also supports one end of a displaced slab, 2m by 1.5m by 0.8m thick, which leans against it from the E. Approximately 2m to the N of the set stones are two upright stones (not hatched on plan) that are not definitely part of the monument and may belong to a ruined field fence, aligned N-S, which is represented by other intermittent large stones beyond the monument. The southern one of these two stones is 1.4m high, and the northern, c. 0.3m to the N, is 1.1m high. Less than 1m W of the southern stone is a prostrate stone, 0.8m by 0.7m by 0.9m. There are a number of other stones lying around the site, some of which seem to have been deliberately smashed. The two tall uprights appear to be the jambs or portal-stones of a megalithic chamber. However, the monument must remain unclassified. Thomas Fagan (1845-8) visited the site in 1846 and described it as the remains of a 'druidical sepulture called Grania's Bed'. There were then eight stones at the site, but their arrangement is not clear from Fagan's account. Fagan 1845-8, book 10, 12; Ó Nualláin 1983a, 44, no. 121; SMR 1987, 69:11; Ó Nualláin 1989, 142; RMP 1995, 69:11. 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)