Standing stone, Ballinrea, Co. Cork

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Ballinrea, Co. Cork

In a pasture on a south-facing slope in Ballinrea, Co. Cork, a single prehistoric stone leans at a sharp angle, not through centuries of gradual subsidence but because of a pronounced bulge on its upper western face.

The irregularity is built into the stone itself, and it gives the monument an almost off-balance quality, as though it were mid-movement rather than fixed in place.

Standing stones, erected across Ireland from roughly the Neolithic through the Bronze Age, are among the most enigmatic features of the Irish landscape. Their precise purposes remain debated; some mark boundaries or routeways, others may be connected to burial sites or ritual use, and many simply resist straightforward interpretation. This particular example stands around 1.5 metres tall and measures 1.7 metres by 0.8 metres, with its long axis running north to south. It is an irregular stone rather than a dressed or shaped one, which places it firmly in the tradition of unworked uprights that punctuate the Cork countryside without offering much in the way of obvious explanation.

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Pete F
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