St. Davog's Chair Archaeological Survey
Lough Derg--Station Island--Archaeological survey
According to Margaret Stokes (1882), there was a 'Giant's Grave' at Carn. Her small-scale distribution map places it a short distance SE of Lough Derg. It is not known to what site she was referring, but it may have been the feature named 'St. Davog's Chair' on OS 6-inch sheet 101. This is in the townland of Carn. It has been described as consisting of a stone seat in front of a grave-like opening but may no longer survive (Lacy 1983, 282).
In the OS Memoir (1835) there is an annotated drawing of a feature named 'St. Deavog's Chair'. This is assigned to a townland named Seadavog Mountain, which, like the townland of Cam, adjoins the southern end of Lough Derg. This drawing shows a small, subrectangular, box-like feature apparently set into the ground. The illustration indicates that it was formed by four stones, one at each of the sides and ends. The recorded measurements show it to have been c. 0.75m long, 0.4m wide at one end, narrowing to 0.2m at the other, and 0.6m deep.
Apparently people knelt in this to pray, with feet to the broader end, knees to the narrower end and elbows resting on the sides. There may be two sites named 'St. D(e)avog's Chair' or simply confusion about location. The name assigned to the site links it to the famous pilgrimage centre on Lough Derg.
As the supposed 'Giant's Grave' referred to by Stokes cannot reliably be identified, its nature remains uncertain.
OS Memoirs, Templecarn parish (1835) [23]; M. Stokes 1882, 17; Lacy 1983, 280-82, no. 1592.
'Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland. Volume VI, County Donegal.' Compiled by: Eamon Cody (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2002).
Compiled by: Eamon Cody
Archaeological Survey of Ireland
National Monuments Service, Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Ireland
22 September 2008
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence
Archaological survey summary
English
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Davog was a woman?
Lough Derg--Folklore--O'Donovan--Dabheoc's Seat
"Now let me at my old antagonist Oral tradition: The chair of Davog lies in the townland of Suidhe Dhabheog (Seeavoge) where in the living rock some impressions of elbows &c are strewn. Davog was a woman, who came to make the turas but she died during its progress and was revived by St Patrick that she might finish it..."
John O'Donovan, 1806-1861
Letter from John O'Donovan, Ballyshanny, 1st of November, 1835, p. 247, O’Donovan, John, Ordnance Survey Letters, Donegal: Letters Containing Information Relative to the Antiquities of the County of Donegal Collected during the Progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1835, p. 122
Four Masters Press, Dublin
1835 [2000]
Transcribed and edited by Michael Herity, MRIA
Citation for the purposes of criticism
Edited edition of letters
English with Irish text in Celtic script
Ordnance Survey Letters
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"The Chair stands out sharply against the vandyke brown of hibernating heathers and the orange of wilted bracken"
Lough Derg--Pilgrimage--Description--Alice Curtayne
"Returning to the lake shore, another notable landmark there should be considered, Saint Brigid's Chair. It is a large rock, roughly-shaped like a high-backed chair, and its is prominent even among the large boulders surrounding it..."
Alice Curtayne, 1898-1981
Curtayne, Alice, Lough Derg: St. Patrick’s Purgatory, pp. 18-19
Burns Oats and Washbourn, Ltd., London and Dublin
1944
Citation for the purposes of criticism
Monograph
English
History
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Seadavog Mountain
Lough Derg--Pilgrimage--Description--Alice Curtayne
"Dabheoc's name is commemorated, too, in Seadavog mountain, a low peak to the west of his Seat on the southern shore of the lake..."
Alice Curtayne, 1898-1981
Curtayne, Alice, Lough Derg: St. Patrick’s Purgatory, p. 18
Burns Oats and Washbourn, Ltd., London and Dublin
1944
Citation for the purposes of criticism
Monograph
English
History
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"Floating on some miracle raft"
Lough Derg--Pilgrimage--Description--Alice Curtayne
"Down below [Dabheoc's Seat], Station Island rose up in imperial grandeur against its background of low hills..."
Alice Curtayne, 1898-1981
Curtayne, Alice, Lough Derg: St. Patrick’s Purgatory, pp. 16-17
Burns Oats and Washbourn, Ltd., London and Dublin
1944
Citation for the purposes of criticism
Monograph
English
History
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"Rolling, tawny bogland framed the blue water"
Lough Derg--Pilgrimage--Description--Alice Curtayne
"Turning back from [St. Dabheoc's Seat] to look down on Lough Derg, the aerial view of Station Island is exquisite..."
Alice Curtayne, 1898-1981
Curtayne, Alice, Lough Derg: St. Patrick’s Purgatory, p. 16
Burns Oats and Washbourn, Ltd., London and Dublin
1944
Citation for the purposes of criticism
Monograph
English
History
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St. Dabheoc's Seat and the old pilgrim road
Lough Derg--Landmarks--Pilgrim Road--Dabheoc's Seat
"To the west of St. Brigid's Chair, and about two furlongs from the shore of the lake, but somewhat further from the chair, is situated on the very summit of a mountain a carn-shaped eminence, on the summit of which is St. Dabheoc's Seat..."
Daniel O'Connor, 1843-1919
Daniel O’Connor, Lough Derg and Its Pilgrimages: With Map and Illustrations, pp. 58-9
J. Dollard, Dublin
1879
Digitised by archive.org, sponsored by Harvard University
Public domain
Monograph
English
Pilgrim handbook
Text
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