But the standing stone at Briskagh occupies the top of a low hill with a wide, open view sweeping from north-north-east to east-south-east, a placement that feels entirely deliberate, whatever the original intention behind it. Standing stones, which were erected across Ireland during the Bronze Age and possibly earlier, are among the most common yet least understood monuments in the landscape; their purposes remain disputed, ranging from territorial markers to ritual focal points to aids for astronomical observation. This one, rectangular in cross-section and tapering to a roughly rounded point, is quietly typical of the type and quietly peculiar at the same time.

The stone was recorded by Denis Power and the record uploaded in August 2011. The measurements are precise: 1.04 metres in height, 0.3 metres across on the north-east to south-west axis, and 0.4 metres on the north-west to south-east axis. It is limestone, the dominant rock of the region, which gives it a certain plainness compared with the more dramatic monoliths found elsewhere in the country. What the record does not tell us, because the archaeology simply does not preserve it, is who raised the stone, exactly when, or why this particular hill was chosen, though the commanding view suggests the hilltop position was no accident.

The stone sits in pasture, so any visit depends on the usual courtesies of farmland access in Ireland; identifying the landowner and asking permission beforehand is the sensible approach. Once you reach it, the most immediately noticeable detail is the texture of its edges, which have been worn smooth by generations of cattle using it as a rubbing post. The ground around the base has been worn down too, churned and compacted by the same animals over a long period. It is an oddly domestic kind of erosion to find on something ancient, and it makes the stone feel genuinely embedded in the life of the land rather than preserved at a careful remove from it. Look for the view as much as the stone itself; the sweep northward and eastward from the hilltop is the context the people who placed it here apparently wanted.