What remains is just the base, protruding barely above the surface of the field, a quiet remnant of something that once rose between one and a half and two metres out of the ground. It is the kind of site that asks more questions than the landscape is willing to answer.

Standing stones are among the most enigmatic survivals of prehistoric Ireland. Erected individually or in loose groupings, they served purposes that remain only partially understood, ranging from territorial markers to ceremonial focal points, and their presence in agricultural land meant they were always vulnerable to the demands of farming. In Ballyduane, local information records that this particular stone was knocked around 1936, a period when field clearance and land improvement were common across rural Ireland. The act of felling it was practical rather than malicious, most likely, but the effect was the same: a monument that had stood for potentially thousands of years was brought down within living memory of people still alive today. The stump left behind sits in the pasture like a full stop at the end of a sentence nobody can quite read.