Standing stone, Walshestown, Co. Cork

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Walshestown, Co. Cork

A large upright stone stands in level pasture near Walshestown in north County Cork, positioned just under ten metres west of an old burial ground.

What makes it quietly arresting is not just its size, though at 2.7 metres tall and over two metres wide it is a substantial presence in flat ground, but the name attached to it: Cloughaun Dallaun, meaning roughly "the stone of the dallauns."

The name was recorded by the local historian James Grove White in his multi-volume work compiled between 1905 and 1925. The word "dallaun" is an Anglicisation of the Irish term for a standing stone or pillar stone, so the name is, in a sense, self-referential: this is the stone of the standing stones, or perhaps the stone known for being a standing stone. Whether that doubling reflects a local tradition of grouping several monuments together under one identity, or simply an unusually literal piece of folk naming, the notes do not say. The stone itself is subrectangular in plan, with its long axis running northeast to southwest, a orientation seen at many prehistoric standing stones across Ireland, though its precise age and purpose remain unrecorded here. Its proximity to a burial ground just to the east adds a layer of ambiguity: a relationship between the two features seems plausible, but whether it is ancient or coincidental is left open.

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Pete F
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