Clare Island Survey — History and Archaeology. 2 <5 



8 feet wide outside and undivided, 25 feet long ; li feet eastward is a trace 

 of another line of slabs. The northern end described by Col. Wood-Martin 

 in " Rude Stone Monuments of Ireland," has nearly vanished, and the whole 

 must shortly disappear, as there is no enlightened public opinion to prevent 

 the destruction of these important monuments for the mere profit of road- 

 contractors and builders of labourers' cottages. Up the great mountain, and 

 so better preserved because less accessible, not far below the " spectacle- 

 dolmen" and the " tumulus cromlech," in Keel East, I find, in Doogort West, a 

 wrecked but noble dolmen, its standing slabs, 9 feet 3 inches by 6 feet, 

 and 7 feet 4 inches, by 4 feet 6 inches, usually about a foot thick. The 

 fragment of its broken cover is 7 feet 4 inches by 7 feet 10 inches, but 

 perhaps only half remains; the rest of this huge slab was used for an old 

 cottage near its site. Down the slope, beside the ancient bohereen or 

 laneway, and near the west border of Keel, is a very large chambered cairn 

 called (like the Doogort dolmen) the "Giant's Grave " with several chambers, 

 divided by great set slabs, one 6 feet 6 inches long, 6 inches thick, and nearly 

 5 feet over the debris. Another block, a roof-lintel, is 10 feet 4 inches, by 

 3 feet, by 10 inches — so far from my notes. 



Colonel Wood-Martin 1 describes, before its partial demolition, " Clochan na 

 stooka," " Pagan Cemetery," an elaborate monument lying a little east of north. 

 It had a circle at its northern end 8 feet across ; then parallel rows 10 feet 

 apart for 52 feet ; then a square enclosure 26 feet 6 inches by 25 feet 6 inches. 

 From the south-west corner a long, slightly curved row of blocks extended ; a 

 corresponding row from the south-east corner was destroyed in human 

 memory. A grave, " Tonalorcha," had a circle 80 feet across; but only parts 

 to the north-west and south-west remained, with a long row of slabs running 

 southward for 80 feet. About a quarter of a mile westward was a dilapidated 

 cist ; its south-west angle remained, and nine scattered slabs. Another monu- 

 ment had four small cups like the "Elf Mills" in Swedish dolmens or the basins 

 in the slabs of the dolmens of Ballyganner Hill, Cappaghkenny, and Newgrove 

 in Co. Clare, and the Clochtogle near Lisbellaw in Fermanagh ; the Achill cups 

 diminish from left to right like at the Clochtogle. There are also a Labba, 

 or bed, adjoining the last, and a cairn, 25 feet by 17 feet, with a ruined cist 

 embedded. Down the hill near the road was a defaced tumulus or cairn 

 96 feet across, in which a series of cists formed a cross, the shorter (north and 

 south) arms of which ended in rings, 10 feet and 21 feet across. It is called 

 " Giant's Grave " ; the circles have disappeared. On Clew Bay to the west 



1 " Rude Stone Monuments," chapter viii, p. 238 : Extra Volume, 1888, of the Roy. Hist, and 

 Archaeol. .Assoc. (Roy. Soe. Antiq. Ir.) Journal lor tame period, vol. xviii, pp. 367-378. 



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