Standing stone, Derreen, Co. Cork

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Derreen, Co. Cork

On the eastern flank of Hungry Hill in west Cork, there is a site recorded as a possible standing stone, with the emphasis firmly on the word "possible".

The stone in question no longer stands where it was first documented, and the ground where it once leaned is now simply a patch of rough pasture on a south-east-facing slope in a quiet valley. What makes the site unusual is not any remarkable antiquity confirmed by excavation or inscription, but rather the matter-of-fact way in which the stone's history illustrates how archaeological evidence can shift, literally, within a generation.

When surveyors recorded the stone in 1996, it was described as leaning to the north-west, orientated roughly north-east to south-west. Standing stones, which are exactly what they sound like, single upright or near-upright stones set into the ground, are common enough across Cork and Kerry, though their precise age and purpose are often uncertain. Many are Bronze Age in origin, placed in the landscape for reasons that may have included burial markers, territorial boundaries, or ceremonial alignments. This particular stone, however, did not remain where it had apparently stood for an indeterminate number of centuries. At some point after 1996, during the course of field clearance work, it was moved approximately 110 metres to the north-west to a new location. The original site is now classified accordingly: not as a standing stone, but as the site of a possible standing stone, a distinction that matters more than it might initially seem.

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Pete F
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