JOURNAL OF THE OOUNTY DONEGAL HISTORICAL SOClETY. 31 and across each other in every conceivable position. Within a short time they crumble into dust and disappear, and the shifting sands brings others to the surface. • • • • • • nected with the spot, no tradition concerning it had come down from the past. About three years ago this mound started breaking up on one side; exposing part of a stone-lined burial cist. At this time two Dublin ladies, Miss Brodigan and Miss Stackpoole (whom I had introduced to Dooey some years before) happened to be on one of their exploring visits to the sand-hills. T'hey communicated to the Niational Museum From the approximate dates the result of their discovery at caoch- mentioned in this paper it would seem an-Stucain, and Professor Duignan was that Dooey was either continuously or sent down to examine the burial. periodically occup·ied from the second to the sixteepth century-maybe .ev·en beMuch to our disappointment Professor fore and after. In .its el\l"lier stages it Duignan left _the Museum shortly after, was, in all probability, a permanent and so far has tieit had time to complete settlement, to be used later as a t.emhis report. Dr, Eiaferty, Acting-Keeper, porary one. Apart from their occupavery kindly supplied the following short tion as shell rfishers;what was the mode report from the Professor's notes:- · of life of th_ese people down ·the centuries? With their crude methods of ". .. . From what there is on the smelting iron were they capable of nroflles I can, however, tell you that the ducing the iron penannular brooch, or upper layer of the sand-hill at Oloch- was it just a wanderer from some more an-Stucain consists of some depth of advanced settlement?.< How far did they dark earth, clearly representing an make use of the soif. and in what kind occupation layer. I do not know of of houses did they li¥e? . I remember any objects that have come precisely one reference to the ·house·s of Letterfrom that level and which would date macaward in ancient .times, and I think it Just under this dark layer Pro- it was in an old Irish story collected by fessor Duignan investigated two the late Henry Morris in the -district. burials. These consisted of extended skeletons, lying East-IWest, their heads '!'hey were conical in shape and were in the East facing 1West. They were constructed by sinking the heavy ends protected by thin slwbs of micaceous of long poles in the ground. The poles sandstone, form1ng long stone cists, were theh slanted inwards to meet at about the date of which there is some a point. The outside was thatched controversy. It is certain, however, with long reeds and rushes. In 'the that this type of grave became corn- excavation at Oronsay in Scotland mon in the early Iron Age (i.e., from (already referred to) holes were found aibout 300 A.O.), and was used also in which had contained the posts of the the early Christian period. It is l'\Ot houses. p0ssible to date precisely the two Dooey burials, but one can say that. they most probably belong to the period from about 400 to 800 A.b. The fact that there was no grave goods associated with the ae;posits might suggest Christian burials, and the remains might be . those of a local Impoverished community of the early centuries of Christianity in Donegal." Slince Professor Duignan'.s visit and especially Within the last year disintegration of the mound has proceeded apace. The summit has capsized anti with it Cloch-an-Stucain, which now Hes partly buried in: the sand. The sides have fallen away, e~posing numbers of human skeletons, not in stonelined cists, nor in graves, but lying over What is the secret of th~ grave mound at C1och-an-Stucain? Th~ report from the Museum tells us of two graves only. What-is the history of the charnel-heap that lay there unsuspected? Was it the cemetery where tbe·last remains of generation after gep.eration were laid to rest, or was it a -·communal grave filled at some distant period ·by war or pestilence? , These and many other questions spring to the mind, •There is but one way of ,getting ,a soluti-on to most of them,. and that is-by scientific investigatibn. In the cas-e of the gravemound much valuable evidence has already .crumbled '·and gone with the wind. Every breeze that blows takes its toll. Let us hope that the archaeological experts do not delav too long.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQxNzU3