A standing stone, the kind of tall, solitary prehistoric upright that punctuates the Irish landscape with quiet authority, once occupied the south-east-facing shoulder of a local hillock. At some point, for reasons unrecorded, somebody removed it and buried it. The stone is still there, presumably, just no longer visible, interred beneath the same ground it once marked.

The details of when this happened, or who was responsible, have not been preserved. Local knowledge carried the memory of the stone forward long enough for it to be noted, but the archaeological record can do little more than register the gap. Standing stones are among the most enduring prehistoric monuments in Ireland, typically dating to the Bronze Age, and they appear across the countryside in enormous variety, from modest waist-high slabs to towering monoliths several metres tall. Their original purposes remain debated, with suggestions ranging from territorial markers to sites of ritual significance. Whatever this particular stone once signified, its removal and concealment is itself a kind of historical event, one that reflects the long, complicated relationship between farming communities and the ancient objects that surface, inconveniently or otherwise, in their fields.