This one is defined entirely by what does not. A standing stone once occupied a stretch of level pasture at Ballinvoher in north County Cork, and at some point it was removed, leaving no visible trace at the surface. No stump, no socket, no shadow in the grass. It is, in the most literal sense, a site of absence.

Standing stones are among the most enigmatic monuments in the Irish landscape. Erected most commonly during the Bronze Age, they served purposes that remain genuinely unclear to archaeologists, variously interpreted as territorial markers, ritual focal points, or memorials. The one at Ballinvoher was recorded as standing in level pasture, which is a relatively unremarkable setting by the standards of these monuments, many of which occupy prominent hilltops or boggy upland ground. What happened to it is unrecorded. Stones of this kind were sometimes taken away for use as building material, incorporated into field walls or farm structures, or simply shifted because they were inconvenient to farm around. The act of removal was rarely documented, which means the stone at Ballinvoher joins a long and quiet list of monuments that exist now only on paper.