Standing stone, Curraghdermot, Co. Cork

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Curraghdermot, Co. Cork

In the forestry at Curraghdermot, a single upright stone leans slightly northward, one metre tall and roughly the size of a large hearthstone.

It is not especially dramatic, but it is also not alone in the historical record, or rather, it should not be. A mid-twentieth-century Ordnance Survey map recorded at least one other stone on the same site, and possibly more. Those companions are now gone, removed, buried, or simply absorbed into the landscape during decades of plantation forestry. What remains is a modest survivor of what was likely a more substantial prehistoric arrangement.

Standing stones are among the most common yet least understood monuments of prehistoric Ireland. They were erected across a wide span of time, broadly from the Neolithic through the Bronze Age, and their purposes remain debated, with theories ranging from territorial markers to ritual focal points to aids in astronomical observation. The 1936 Ordnance Survey six-inch map is the last known record of the additional stones at Curraghdermot, which means the site experienced significant loss sometime in the intervening decades, most probably as commercial forestry expanded across the area. The surviving stone measures 0.69 metres by 0.43 metres in cross-section, giving it a broad, flat profile rather than the needle-like silhouette associated with some better-known examples.

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