Megalithic tomb, Cruachlann, Gleann Cholm Cille, Co. Donegal
Located 250 metres west-southwest of another ancient monument and slightly uphill, this megalithic tomb sits on a patch of wet, boggy ground dotted with rock exposures.
Megalithic tomb, Cruachlann, Gleann Cholm Cille, Co. Donegal
The site offers limited views to the south, north and east due to a rocky ridge and rising ground, but opens up to an uninterrupted vista of the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Lough Meenaviller can just be glimpsed 230 metres to the northeast. Unfortunately, a road has been built directly over part of the monument, obscuring its original extent and outline.
The visible remains consist of one upright stone still in its original position and four displaced slabs, all clustered about 5 metres from the western end of a grass-covered cairn. The cairn appears to have been oriented east to west, measuring 16 metres in that direction and extending 6.3 metres northward from the road’s edge. The set stone, aligned northwest to southeast, actually projects from the metalled road bed itself, with the road surface rising 0.4 metres above it. Three of the displaced slabs lie in sequence west of this standing stone, with their southern ends buried beneath the road, whilst a fourth rests atop the uneven cairn surface to the north.
When antiquarian Thomas Fagan visited in 1847, he noted the monument was already damaged but recorded that one ‘grave’ structure survived at the western end of the cairn, measuring roughly 3 metres by 1.5 metres and enclosed by flag stones up to 0.9 metres high. Local tradition holds that further damage occurred during road improvements in 1929, though the road itself has existed in some form since at least the 1835 Ordnance Survey. Whilst the remains clearly represent a megalithic tomb, its current state of preservation makes it impossible to determine its specific type or original configuration.





