Standing stone, Donoure, Co. Cork

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Donoure, Co. Cork

In a pasture on a north-east-facing slope in Donoure, County Cork, a standing stone appears to have given up standing.

The stone, recorded in the early twentieth century under the Irish term "gallaun", a word used on Ordnance Survey maps to denote a single upright megalithic stone, is no longer in its original position. It now leans against a field fence to the west, and whether that leaning stone is even the original is uncertain.

The site has a quietly puzzling cartographic history. When the first detailed Ordnance Survey mapping of Ireland was carried out in 1842, nothing was marked here at all. By the time the revised six-inch map was produced in 1904, the gallaun had been recorded and named. This gap of sixty-odd years raises an obvious question: was the stone simply overlooked by the earlier surveyors, or had it been re-erected, moved, or otherwise introduced to the site in the intervening period? No clear answer survives. What is known is that at some point after the 1904 survey, the stone was removed from its upright position, and what may be it now rests horizontally against a fence on the western edge of the field.

For a visitor, there is little to guide the eye or confirm much with certainty. The pasture setting and the fence-leaning stone are the sum of what remains on the ground, and even the identity of that stone is qualified with a cautious "may be".

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Pete F
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