Megalithic structure, Corbally, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Megalithic Tombs
In a field in Corbally, Co. Tipperary, there is a megalithic monument that no longer exists above ground, and yet its absence is itself a kind of record.
The site sits on a gentle rise in rolling countryside, with a stream running to the east, and there is nothing to see. No stone stands upright, no outline breaks the grass. What makes the place quietly strange is not what survives but the gap between what was once described and what remains.
In 1927, a writer named Murphy recorded the structure under the evocative name "The Druidical Stones of Clonoulty", describing two parallel lines of large rough slabs, each standing on edge and running for approximately eighteen metres, with most in careful alignment. Stone rows or settings of this kind are broadly megalithic in character, meaning they were raised in prehistoric times, though the precise period and purpose of such monuments is rarely certain. What is notable is that even by 1840, when the first edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map was being drawn up with considerable attention to antiquities, the structure was not marked. Whether the surveyors missed it, or it was already in poor condition by that point, is unknown. By the time any modern assessment was made, no visible remains survived at ground level at all. Large boulders have since been dumped along the field boundary to the east, which may have compounded the confusion or loss of the original stones.
There is nothing to find here in the conventional sense, and a visitor would stand in an ordinary field without a clear marker or trace. The interest lies instead in the record itself, a named monument, described in some detail within living memory, which has effectively vanished from the landscape while the landscape itself carries on undisturbed.
