Standing stone, Dromavally, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Stone Monuments
On the Ordnance Survey maps, a standing stone is clearly marked at Dromavally in County Kerry.
The local term is gallaun, the Irish word for a single upright megalith, and this one was recorded at a respectable 7 feet (2.1 metres) tall. The problem is that it no longer exists. Whatever was once planted upright in this corner of the Dingle Peninsula has since vanished, leaving behind a quiet puzzle about what replaced it, or what was always alongside it.
At roughly the same location, a long low mound of earth and stones sits largely hidden beneath dense vegetation. It runs at least 14 metres east to west, is 10 metres wide at its broader western end, and rises to just 0.8 metres at that same end before tapering away in both width and height towards the east. Several large stones around its edges may be kerb stones, the kind used to define the perimeter of a burial mound or similar prehistoric earthwork. A shallow depression is visible on the upper surface, which in other contexts can indicate where the interior of a mound has settled or been disturbed over centuries. A small cairn of loose stones sits to the southwest of the western end, though this may simply be the result of farmers clearing the surrounding fields over generations rather than any deliberate prehistoric arrangement. The site was recorded by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, a study that documented the extraordinary concentration of prehistoric and early medieval monuments across that part of Kerry.