Rock art, Glansallagh, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Rock art, Glansallagh, Co. Cork

On a sandstone ridge in Glansallagh, a small panel of prehistoric carvings sits almost flush with the surrounding rock, easily mistaken for a natural feature of the stone.

The decorated surface measures less than a metre across and carries three cup-and-ring motifs, a form of prehistoric rock art in which a shallow central depression, the cup, is encircled by one or more carved concentric rings. What makes this particular panel quietly arresting is how thoroughly it has been swallowed by its surroundings. By the time surveyors visited in the 2010s, the carvings were completely obscured by moss and vegetation, and could only be located by cross-referencing older photographs with the nearby bend in a drystone field wall and a white marker stone. The motifs were traced rather than seen in any conventional sense.

The ridge runs east to west at around 77 metres above sea level, and the decorated face of the rock tilts gently westward. The largest motif, an oval cup some 15 centimetres by 10 centimetres with two encircling rings, sits at the centre of the panel. A smaller cup-and-ring sits roughly 20 centimetres to the southeast, and a possible cupmark lies about 27 centimetres to the west-southwest of the larger carving. The sandstone itself carries natural east-west striations and scattered solution pits, shallow depressions formed by weathering, which run across the same surface as the carvings and complicate any quick reading of the rock. Surveyors noted that further motifs may well lie beneath the moss, as yet untraced. The ridge once commanded open views toward Mount Corrin to the west and Mount Gabriel to the southwest, both prominent landmarks in this part of west Cork, but conifer planting has since closed in around the site and those sightlines are largely gone.

The monument sits at the southern edge of a forestry plantation, with a forest trackway running roughly 10 metres to the north. Its current setting, hemmed in by conifers and draped in moss, is a long way from whatever open, west-facing landscape the carvers would have known. Visitors should be prepared for the fact that the carvings are extremely subtle and heavily weathered; even when located precisely, they require patience and good raking light to read clearly.

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