Standing stone, Carha, Co. Mayo

Co. Mayo |

Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Carha, Co. Mayo

A rectangular slab of stone, just 1.2 metres tall, sits at the highest point of a low hillock in Carha, Co. Mayo, leaning slightly eastward with a small boulder wedged against its northern base as if placed there to steady it.

It is not a dramatic monument by any measure, yet the hill on which it stands commands a wide sweep of the surrounding landscape, the Ox Mountains visible to the east and south, and Nephin along with the Nephin Beg Range rising to the south-west. Directly below, to the west, lies a flat stretch of wettish pasture, and the hill itself drops away sharply on that side while falling more gradually to the east.

What makes the stone quietly puzzling is its absence from the Ordnance Survey's detailed 6-inch map of 1837 to 1838, one of the most thorough cartographic exercises ever carried out in Ireland. It appears, labelled simply as a standing stone, only on the 1922 edition, which raises the question of whether it was genuinely overlooked by the earlier surveyors or whether it was only erected, or re-erected, in the intervening decades. The stone itself is precisely described: rectangular in both shape and cross-section, its long axis running north-north-west to south-south-east, the top surface sloping downward from north to south, the western face gently concave near the base and the eastern face slightly convex. The hill beneath it may have been modified at some point to form an enclosure, and roughly 95 metres to the south-west there was once a mound, now levelled, suggesting this small elevated spot held some significance across more than one period of use.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Standing stone, Carha, Co. Mayo. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement