Stone circle - five-stone, Uragh, Co. Kerry

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Stone Monuments

Stone circle – five-stone, Uragh, Co. Kerry

A small stone circle in Kerry can easily be overshadowed by a neighbour, but at Uragh the overshadowing is almost literal.

The five-stone circle here, sitting on a ridge above Lough Inchiquin, measures only 2.5 metres across, yet just 0.6 metres from its axial stone rises a massive standing stone that dwarfs the entire ring. The relationship between the two monuments is the first thing a visitor registers, and it raises an obvious question: which came first, and did whoever built one intend it to accompany the other?

Five-stone circles are a type found predominantly in south-west Ireland, characterised by a pair of portal stones at the entrance, two flanking stones, and a low, flat-topped axial stone aligned roughly south-west, which is thought to reflect a concern with solar or lunar events along that axis. At Uragh, the axial stone sits at the south-west as expected, while the entrance stone to the south leans noticeably outwards, suggesting some ground movement or disturbance over the centuries. The interior of the circle has been dug out to a depth of around 0.3 metres, an interference common to many such monuments, whether through curiosity, treasure-seeking, or agricultural clearance. The five stones themselves range in height from roughly 0.86 to just over a metre. An enclosure of some kind lies approximately 16 metres to the north-west, suggesting that whatever activity centred on this ridge in prehistory, the circle was not an isolated gesture in the landscape. The site is referenced in Twohig's 1987 survey of Irish stone circles, which remains a key study of the monument type.

The ridge setting above Lough Inchiquin gives the site its particular atmosphere. The rough pasture and the water below frame the stones in a way that no amount of description quite prepares you for, and the sheer scale of the adjacent standing stone, so close to the axial stone yet so different in character, rewards slow attention rather than a quick glance.

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