Yet this standing stone at Doire Fhínín has been planted in the ground with clear intention: rectangular in plan, its long axis running east-north-east to west-south-west, it leans slightly to the south as though tilting towards something it once aligned with. At roughly three metres tall but only twenty centimetres thick, it has the proportions of a blade rather than a pillar.

Standing stones, as a class of monument, belong broadly to the prehistoric period, most commonly erected during the Neolithic or Bronze Age, though pinning a precise date to any individual example without excavation is rarely possible. Their purpose remains genuinely uncertain; theories range from boundary markers to astronomical alignments to sites of ritual significance, and the honest answer is that several of these functions may have overlapped. This particular stone sits at the foot of a north-facing slope, in ground that has long since been given over to pasture. Its dimensions, recorded at 3.1 metres high and 1.47 metres across, place it comfortably among the larger surviving examples in Mid Cork.