Building, Knockergrana, Co. Donegal
In the boglands near Knockergrana in County Donegal, a remarkable archaeological complex sprawls across a small hill, its ancient stones partly swallowed by peat and time.
Building, Knockergrana, Co. Donegal
At its heart stands a solitary stone, nearly two metres tall, surrounded by an intricate network of field walls and enclosures that emerge and disappear beneath the bog’s surface. The site reveals itself in fragments; some structures lie buried up to a metre deep, discovered only through careful probing, whilst others peek through where turf has been cut away or where the bog thins at its edges.
The complex divides roughly along a modern field boundary that cuts through its centre, likely built from stones robbed from these earlier structures. South of this boundary, a series of interconnected walls forms small field systems alongside two modest oval cairns, the larger measuring eight by three metres. A semicircular arrangement of stones, approximately 32 metres in diameter, fades out as it meets the modern wall. North of the boundary, the archaeology becomes even more intriguing, with three additional standing stones arranged in a north-south line and a substantial circular enclosure, 35 metres across, divided internally by a wall that creates eastern and western sections. Smaller sub-circular enclosures nestle both within and adjacent to this main structure, whilst field walls and four additional small enclosures extend northward, eastward and westward across the hillside.
This extensive site sits roughly 400 metres east of Knockergrana Court-tomb and 250 metres from a cup-marked boulder, placing it within a broader prehistoric landscape. Whether all these features date to the same period remains uncertain; the bog that both preserves and conceals them makes dating difficult, and centuries of turf cutting have further complicated the archaeological picture. What remains clear is that this hillside once buzzed with human activity, its carefully constructed walls and enclosures testament to communities who shaped this landscape long before the bog began its slow advance.