Giants Grave, Grange Beg, Co. Sligo
Co. Sligo |
Megalithic Tombs
County Sligo has an unusually dense concentration of prehistoric megalithic monuments, and somewhere in the townland of Grange Beg sits one known locally as the Giants Grave, a name attached to megalithic tombs across Ireland by communities who had long since lost any knowledge of their original builders and filled the gap with folklore about enormous ancient beings.
The site is documented in Seán Ó Nualláin's Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, the fifth volume of which focused on County Sligo and was published by the Stationery Office in Dublin in 1989. Ó Nualláin's survey was a systematic effort to catalogue the surviving megalithic monuments of Ireland, a category that includes court tombs, portal tombs, passage tombs, and wedge tombs, each representing a different tradition of monumental burial practice stretching back roughly four to six thousand years. Sligo was particularly rewarding territory for this kind of work, given that it contains some of the country's most significant Neolithic landscapes, including the Carrowmore complex and the great passage tomb of Knocknarea.
Visitor Notes
Added by
