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

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Stone Monuments

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

On the northern slope of Knockreagh Mountain in County Kerry, a prehistoric stone circle sits in rough pasture with rather more going on inside and around it than most such monuments manage.

The circle itself is irregular, measuring roughly 7.5 metres by 8.5 metres, and is composed of ten surviving stones, most standing between one and one and a quarter metres tall. Two have fallen, two more have been absorbed into a later field boundary at the south-west, and a conspicuous gap in the south-east arc points to the likely loss of an eleventh stone at some point. Taken together, these small alterations and absences give the monument a slightly unfinished quality, as though it has been quietly cannibalised by the landscape over centuries.

What distinguishes Uragh from a straightforward multiple-stone circle is the density of prehistoric activity concentrated in and around it. The circle follows the standard Kerry typology, with two transversely set entrance stones at the north-east and a flat-topped axial stone directly opposite; this axial stone, typically the lowest in such circles, was likely aligned with a celestial or calendrical event. Pressed against its outer face is a possible fulacht fia, a type of burnt mound associated with prehistoric cooking or industrial activity, identifiable by scorched stone and charcoal-rich earth. More striking still, a boulder-burial occupies the centre of the circle itself. Boulder-burials are a distinctively Irish monument type in which a large capstone is set directly on the ground, sometimes covering human remains, with no chamber beneath. Three further boulder-burials stand roughly eight to ten metres to the south-west, suggesting that this small patch of mountainside held particular significance across a sustained period of prehistoric use. Two small stones exposed just beyond the entrance, at only 0.3 and 0.4 metres high, may represent an elaboration of the entrance feature, though their precise function remains unclear. The site is documented in Twohig's 1987 survey of Irish stone circles.

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