At Coolowen in County Cork, a prehistoric upright stone that had occupied the same patch of pasture for potentially thousands of years was removed around 1966 during field clearance, the kind of agricultural tidying-up that quietly erased countless ancient monuments across Ireland in the mid-twentieth century. What was once a fixed point in the landscape, the sort of solitary megalith that communities organised space and perhaps ritual around, became simply an absence.

The stone at Coolowen is recorded in Walsh's 1985 survey, which also flags a second possible standing stone located roughly 100 metres to the south-west, within the same field. Standing stones are among the most enigmatic prehistoric survivals in Ireland, single tall stones set vertically into the ground, probably erected during the Bronze Age, though their precise purposes remain debated. They may have marked boundaries, graves, routeways, or ceremonial sites. The pairing here, two stones in the same field within close proximity, is worth noting. Such arrangements, even informal or uncertain ones, hint at a structured relationship between monuments rather than isolated placements. Whether the south-western stone survives is not clear from available records.

There is little for a visitor to see at the original site today, given the removal of the stone itself. The second possible stone to the south-west, catalogued separately, may repay attention for anyone in the area with an interest in how densely these monuments once populated what is now ordinary farmland in east and south Cork.