Standing stone, Clashmorgan, Co. Cork

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Clashmorgan, Co. Cork

A single upright stone on a small hillock in mid Cork is not, on the face of it, a remarkable thing.

Ireland has thousands of standing stones, and most attract little more than a glance from passing walkers. What gives this one at Clashmorgan a quiet interest is its placement: it stands on top of a dooneen, a small rounded hill or hillock, which would have made it visible across a wide stretch of surrounding landscape to anyone who knew where to look.

The stone itself is modest in scale, rising to about one and a half metres in height and rectangular in plan, measuring roughly half a metre by a quarter of a metre at its base. Its long axis runs northeast to southwest, an orientation that appears with some regularity among Irish prehistoric standing stones, though whether that alignment carried astronomical, territorial, or ritual significance at Clashmorgan is not recorded. Standing stones of this kind are generally associated with the Bronze Age, erected as boundary markers, commemorative monuments, or focal points for activity in the landscape, though the specific purpose of any individual stone is almost never recoverable from the archaeological evidence alone. What can be said is that whoever raised this stone chose their spot deliberately, lifting it above the surrounding ground to give it presence.

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