Standing stone, Kilballyquilty, Co. Waterford

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Kilballyquilty, Co. Waterford

A small standing stone in County Waterford is easy to overlook, and that is partly what makes it worth noticing. Set just below the crest of a south-facing slope in the townland of Kilballyquilty, it looks out over the headwaters of the Aughnabrone stream, which runs roughly from south-west to north-east through the surrounding land. The stone itself is modest in scale, measuring approximately 0.7 metres wide, 0.4 metres deep, and reaching a maximum height of 1.2 metres, and it is oriented roughly east to west. Its top has been damaged at some point, so what stands today is almost certainly shorter than it once was.

The stone is composed of conglomerate, a sedimentary rock made up of rounded fragments of older rock cemented together, which gives it a distinctive coarse texture quite different from the smooth granite or sandstone more commonly associated with prehistoric standing stones. Standing stones of this kind were erected throughout Ireland during the Bronze Age, though the precise purposes behind individual examples remain uncertain. Some appear to mark boundaries or routes; others may have had ceremonial or astronomical significance. The east-west orientation of the Kilballyquilty stone is suggestive, given that alignment with sunrise or sunset is a recurring feature in prehistoric monuments, though without further investigation it would be unwise to read too much into it. Its position just off a ridge, with a water source visible below, follows a pattern seen at other such sites across the country.

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