Megalithic tomb, Annayalla, Co. Monaghan

Co. Monaghan |

Megalithic Tombs

Megalithic tomb, Annayalla, Co. Monaghan

On the west-facing slope of a small ridge near Annayalla in County Monaghan, there is a site that appears on an old Ordnance Survey map but almost nowhere else, marked in gothic lettering with the words "Giant's Grave".

That label, a common Irish folk name for megalithic tombs, the large prehistoric stone structures built for communal burial thousands of years before the Christian era, suggests that something significant once stood here. The problem is that nothing remains to be seen.

The 1907 edition of the six-inch OS map is the only cartographic record to acknowledge the site, and that single appearance is now the primary evidence that anything was ever here at all. At some point trees were planted across the area, and whatever arrangement of stone may once have given the place its name has entirely disappeared. It is possible the structure was robbed out for building material, a fate that befell countless megalithic monuments across Ireland, or that the original identification was itself uncertain. Either way, the gap between the confident gothic script of the mapmaker and the blank, forested slope that exists today is considerable.

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