Standing stone, Cullaun, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Stone Monuments
One of the more curious absences in Irish field archaeology is a standing stone that no longer stands, or indeed exists above ground at all.
This particular stone, recorded in the 1930s as stone 6B on an official map of the area, sat within a sprawling concentration of upright stones spread across two adjoining Tipperary townlands, Timoney Hills and Cullaun. By the time anyone thought to look again, it had vanished entirely, leaving no surface trace.
The broader grouping to which it belonged was documented between 1934 and 1936 by the Inspector of National Monuments, who counted 221 stones still standing at that time, 173 in Timoney Hills and 48 in Cullaun. A later map published in the Archaeological Survey of Ikerrin recorded 245 stones in total, of which 70 had already been removed, along with five cairns that have also since disappeared. The Inspector described what remained as "a most remarkable group," noting that the stones, all of red sandstone or conglomerate, ranged from roughly three to six feet in height, with larger examples averaging around five feet. They did not appear to follow any obvious arrangement, with one exception: a discernible stone circle in Cullaun. The whole ensemble sits on the landscaped estate of Timoney Park, once the property of the Parker-Hutchinson family, and that fact has led some to question whether the stones are genuinely prehistoric or whether the estate's landscaping history has a role in explaining their unusual distribution and character. It is a question that remains unresolved.

