Megalithic structure, Loughgur, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Megalithic Tombs
Nobody is entirely sure what this arrangement of stones actually is.
What was once described as a stone circle near Bourchier's Castle on the Knockadoon Peninsula at Lough Gur has turned out, on closer inspection, to be something considerably stranger: two lines of low boulders meeting at an acute angle of roughly sixty degrees, with a single standing stone rising 1.52 metres at the apex, leaning noticeably to the south. It does not appear on Ordnance Survey historic maps, and aerial imagery from as recently as 2005 to 2013 fails to show it clearly. The structure sits in a paddock that may once have been an orchard, quietly losing legibility to the landscape around it.
The earliest written reference comes from Croker in 1833, who noted a stone circle near Bourchier's Castle, a tower house that still stands some sixty metres to the northwest within the farm buildings of Loughgur Farm. It was O'Kelly, writing in 1944, who pushed back against the stone circle identification and gave the more precise description that survives today, concluding plainly that "it is not now possible to say what this structure was." A decade later, Seán P. Ó Ríordáin catalogued it as Site 15 in his survey of the area, describing it as "standing stones and mound" and mapping its location, which remains the reference point used to locate the site on more recent satellite imagery. The surroundings only add to the density of the place: two crannóga, which are artificial or partially artificial islands used as dwelling places in early medieval Ireland, lie roughly 200 metres to the southeast in a drained section of Lough Gur; a bullaun stone, a boulder with one or more cup-shaped hollows often associated with early Christian or prehistoric ritual use, sits 150 metres to the northeast; and the excavated sites of two medieval houses are just 125 metres away in the same direction.
The structure lies within a working farm on the northeastern edge of Knockadoon Peninsula, and access to the paddock is not publicly open in the usual sense. Lough Gur itself is well signposted from the surrounding roads, and the broader landscape is genuinely rewarding for anyone interested in how densely layered the archaeology of this particular shoreline is. Visiting in lower vegetation months, late autumn through early spring, gives the best chance of making out low-lying stonework in pasture. The leaning apex stone is the most visible element; the flanking boulders, standing only around 0.46 metres high, require more patience to distinguish from the general scatter of a grazed field.