At Dromaneen in County Cork there was once a standing stone, the kind of prehistoric upright that appears throughout the Irish landscape as a marker, a boundary, or simply a presence whose original purpose is now lost. What makes this particular stone worth noting is that it survives only as a measurement and a note, recorded in the 1930s by someone who found it already broken, and gone entirely from the ground today.

The record comes from Bowman, who visited in 1934 and noted the stone lying around eighteen metres south of a nearby ringfort, one of those circular earthwork enclosures used for settlement and farming in early medieval Ireland. Even then it was in poor condition. The portion still standing measured one foot ten inches in height, with a girth of nine feet seven inches, suggesting a substantial stone that had been considerably reduced. Whether it fell, was broken deliberately, or was removed for building material is not recorded. No surface trace now survives, which in archaeological terms means the stone is presumed lost, possibly buried, possibly taken away entirely.

The proximity to the ringfort is worth noting. Standing stones in Ireland are often found in association with other monuments, and while the relationship between a prehistoric upright and an early medieval enclosure is not always straightforward, the pairing at Dromaneen was clearly visible enough for Bowman to record both in the same observation. What remains is a townland, a field somewhere in North Cork, and a set of measurements that describe something no longer there.