Standing stone, Annagap, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Stone Monuments
A single upright stone, nearly three metres tall, stands alone in a level pasture field just under a kilometre north-west of Anascaul village on the Dingle Peninsula.
It is not ruined, not fragmentary, and not hard to miss. It simply stands there, as it has for several thousand years, oriented east to west at its base, which measures roughly 2.26 metres by 0.86 metres. Around that base, a cluster of packing stones remains visible, the deliberate wedging material used by whoever erected it to keep the stone upright and stable in the ground.
Standing stones of this kind are among the most enigmatic monuments in the Irish landscape. They date most commonly to the Bronze Age, though precise dating for individual stones is rarely possible without associated finds or excavation. Their purposes are debated, ranging from territorial markers and route indicators to ritual or funerary functions, and many were likely meaningful in ways that left no recoverable trace. This particular stone on the Dingle Peninsula was recorded by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the peninsula, a detailed inventory that documented the remarkable concentration of prehistoric and early medieval monuments across this part of Kerry. The stone's dimensions, its orientation, and the surviving packing arrangement at its base were all noted at that time.