Megalithic tomb - portal tomb, Málainn Mhóir, Co. Donegal
In the townland of Málainn Mhóir in County Donegal, a remarkable row of six megalithic chambers stretches across 100 metres of reclaimed pastureland.
Megalithic tomb - portal tomb, Málainn Mhóir, Co. Donegal
This westernmost complex of seven megalithic tombs stands on the valley floor near Malin Bay, with sweeping views out to sea to the west and north. The site sits 500 metres from the bay itself, though the steep slopes of Leahan Mountain rising to the south and southeast create a more intimate setting than you might expect from such an exposed Atlantic location.
The chambers, numbered one to six from west to east, don’t follow a neat, orderly pattern; instead, they’re positioned at irregular intervals of 12, 16, 9, 14 and 30 metres apart. Four of them are definitively portal tombs, each facing a different direction: the first towards the east;northeast, the second south;southeast, the third north, and the sixth due east. The unusually large gap between the fifth and sixth chambers hints that another structure may once have stood there, possibly lost when the adjacent road was built. When antiquarian Thomas Fagan visited in 1847, he recorded seven chambers and claimed they all once stood within a single massive cairn measuring roughly 91 metres east to west and 18 metres north to south, though by his time it was already “defaced” and partly given over to tillage and fences.
Chamber number two offers a good example of the complex’s construction style. This small portal tomb has its entrance facing south;southeast, flanked by two portal stones, though the western one is now just a broken stump. Single stones form the chamber’s sides, set outside the portal stone lines, with a backstone closing off the rear. The roofstone has slipped westward over time and now rests precariously on what might be a piece that detached from its own underside. When intact, this chamber would have measured just under two metres in length, narrowing slightly from 1.05 metres wide at the entrance to 0.9 metres at the back. Today, a scatter of partly buried stones across the eastern half of the site and a small, low mound beside the easternmost chamber are all that remain of what may have been an extensive cairn system.





