Standing stone, Carrignavar, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Stone Monuments
In the bogland north of the Cloghnagashee river, near the village of Carrignavar in County Cork, a standing stone has effectively vanished.
The site is recorded as having no visible surface trace, which places it in a peculiar category: a monument that is known to exist, or to have existed, yet cannot currently be seen. This is not uncommon in Ireland's wetter landscapes, where centuries of peat accumulation can swallow even substantial upright stones entirely.
The stone may be the same one described in 1914 by a writer named O'Donoghue, who noted a remarkable stone in a glen south of the village, standing more than five feet high and nearly two feet thick. That is a sizeable monolith, the kind of freestanding prehistoric marker that would have been deliberately erected, likely during the Bronze Age, though standing stones in Ireland range widely in date and purpose. Whether O'Donoghue's stone and the recorded bogland stone are one and the same remains uncertain. The discrepancy in location, one described as south of the village in a glen, the other placed on the north side of the Cloghnagashee river, leaves the identification genuinely open.
