Carraduffy / Killin Court Tomb

The monument is on rush-grown land on the lower SE slopes of Killin Hill and above the basin of the Eany Water River, which flows southward into Inver Bay just over 5km to the S. It now consists of a grass-grown mound, a long oval in outline, near the centre of which is a single upright stone. The mound measures c. 33m N-S by 22m in overall width and lm in average height. Its surface has been disturbed by digging. The lone set stone here measures 0.8m by 0.8m by 0.85m high. In the 1950s Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin established from both local information and an examination of the site that this stone had stood as the western jamb of a chamber that lay to its N. The socket of a presumed sidestone ran northward from this stone, and the socket of another presumed sidestone lay E of and opposite the last. Another socket, the presumed position of a backstone or a segmenting feature, ran between the northern ends of the two opposed sockets. At this period another set stone stood 7m N of the one still extant, but it had been removed by 1983. This stone measured 1.4m long (E-W), 0.15m thick and 0.5m high. Narrow holes, clearly traceable in the ground in the 1950s, to the N of and parallel to this orthostat appeared to indicate the former position of two or more slabs. The whole arrangement at the site pointed to the remains being those of a court tomb with a subsidiary chamber (de Valera 1960, 108-9). Descriptions in the OS Name Books, though imprecise, testify to the megalithic character of the monument before it was largely demolished. It was first shown on the 1847-50 edition of the OS 6-inch map, where the northern one of two small rectangles is named 'Giant's Grave' and the southern one 'Carricknabraher'. In the accompanying OS Revision Name Book 'Carricknabraher' is described as 'a conspicuous ruin...said to be a house, where friars formerly officiated', and the 'Giant's Grave' was simply described as 'a remarkable grave of granite stone'. Another entry in the same Name Book describes both features as 'two objects in the form of tombs (open at top) comprised of rough flags set on their ends'. In the OS Name Book compiled during the 1:2,500 survey of this area in 1904, the feature named 'Carricknabraher' is described as follows: 'A number of large flags form the walls of a square enclosure having a doorway on the S side. There are also several long stones let into the ground forming graves.' The term 'Giant's Grave' is recorded as applying to 'a number of long flags fixed deeply into the earth and about one foot [c. 0.3m] remaining above the surface forming the shape of a grave 25 links by 10 links [c. 5m by 2m]'. OS Revision Name Book, sheet 92 (1847-50), 39, 41, 43; OS 1:2,500 Name Book, sheet 92 (1900-1905), 9; MacHugh 1959, 166 ('Killian'); de Valera 1960, 108-9, DG. 22; Ó Nualláin 1983a, 22, no. 28; SMR 1987, 92:3; Ó Nualláin 1989, 117; RMP 1995, 92:3. 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)