One of those sites that I’ve seen a lot of shots of, looked forward to visiting, got there finally and found it not remotely similar to what I’d imagined. Which is not to say that it’s not amazing, just that I found it a tad underwhelming, especially after the drenching back and Cloghanmore.
The laneway that runs along the fields that contain the tombs is extremely narrow. Eamonn Cody, in the Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, Volume VI, County Donegal (2002) numbers the tombs 1 to 6 from west to east. After Cloghanmore and still in the slipstream of the torrent, I didn’t feel like vaulting the gate, so I only photographed 1 and 6 at opposing ends of the ‘alignment’.
Both 1 and 6 are the two most impressive chambers. Cody mentions that there may have been a seventh and it’s worth quoting from the previous mentioned survey: “Thomas Fagan …, who visited the site in 1847, refers to the existence of seven chambers, … but provides details of only those numbered 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 here. He claimed that the chambers had stood in one long cairn that he estimated originally measured 100 yards E-W and 20 yards N-S.” Cody notes the larger gap between chambers 5 and 6 and says that this might have contained the destroyed 7th chamber.
There are remnants of a cairn at chamber 6, at the top end of the alignment and in someone’s garden. It’s the largest of the six but difficult to get a sense of given its location. I did clamber up and attempt a shot back west down the alignment, but in our hurried, drenched and flustered state didn’t meet with much success. The bottom chamber, chamber 1, is impressively large, but was surrounded by a flock of dreadlocked sheep so we didn’t enter the field. Another one I’ll have to return to.