Megalithic tomb - court tomb, Lurgan, Co. Donegal
Tucked into a west-facing hillslope in County Donegal, this ancient court tomb offers a glimpse into Ireland's Neolithic past.
Megalithic tomb - court tomb, Lurgan, Co. Donegal
Located 900 metres southeast of another court tomb in the same townland of Lurgan, this monument somehow escaped the attention of Ordnance Survey mapmakers through multiple editions of their detailed 6-inch maps. From its position in the pasture, you can see the sea stretching beyond the low, drumlin-like hills to the west, whilst rising ground blocks the eastern view.
The monument consists of a nearly 9-metre-long unroofed stone gallery that would have once served as a communal burial chamber. The structure narrows towards the back, where a pair of small stone jambs marks the entrance to a separate rear chamber; this inner sanctum measures just 2 metres long and tapers from 1.8 metres to 1.5 metres wide. The main gallery entrance at the south-southeast end features two carefully matched jambs supporting a substantial lintel stone, though a modern field fence now rather unceremoniously cuts through this ancient doorway. The gallery walls are formed by large orthostats, or standing stones, varying in height from 0.2 to 0.8 metres, with smaller stones marking what were likely internal divisions between multiple chambers.
Whilst time and farming have taken their toll on the monument, subtle traces of its original cairn mound can still be detected in the hummocky pasture surrounding the stones. About 11 metres beyond the gallery’s back wall, a noticeable dip in the ground may mark where this covering cairn once ended. Archaeological surveys suggest the gallery originally contained at least two chambers in addition to the rear chamber that survives today, making this a substantial burial complex that would have served the local Neolithic community some 5,000 years ago.





