Standing stone, Ballinlyna, Co. Limerick

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Ballinlyna, Co. Limerick

A single upright stone, just a metre tall, stands quietly in a field in County Limerick, and what makes it worth attention is not its size but its company.

Within a radius of roughly 115 metres, the same stretch of grassland contains an oval-shaped earthwork to the east and a cist burial to the north-north-east, a cist being a small stone-lined grave of prehistoric origin, typically covered by a flat capstone. The three monuments form a loose cluster in an otherwise unremarkable agricultural landscape, the kind of grouping that suggests this patch of ground once carried some sustained ceremonial or funerary significance, even if exactly what that was has long since passed out of any recoverable record.

The standing stone itself is rectangular in plan, measuring roughly one metre in height, 45 centimetres wide, and only 17 centimetres thick, with a top that tapers to a point. Its long axis runs north to south. Details about the site were provided by James and Billy O'Brien and compiled by Caimin O'Brien, with the record uploaded in September 2021. The nearby earthwork carries the reference LI056-038 in the national monuments record, and the cist burial is catalogued as LI056-037. Ballinlyna House sits approximately 200 metres to the north, meaning the stone and its associated monuments occupy ground that has remained in a working rural setting rather than becoming absorbed into any formal heritage designation.

The site sits in private farmland, so access would require landowner permission before visiting. There is no signage, no formal path, and nothing to announce the stone's presence from a road. The earthwork 80 metres to the east is the element most likely to reward a careful eye on the ground, as oval enclosures of this kind can be subtle features that read more clearly in low winter light or from a slight elevation. The stone itself, modest as it is, repays close attention once you are standing beside it; the deliberate orientation and the taper of its upper edge suggest it was shaped with some care, rather than simply dragged upright and left.

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