Standing stone, Dromourneen, Co. Cork

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Dromourneen, Co. Cork

Between the back garden of a house and a small stream in Dromourneen, County Cork, a prehistoric standing stone has been quietly absorbed into the domestic landscape.

A fence runs up against it, a field boundary curves respectfully around it, and the ground has been built up over time so that the stone's true depth below the surface remains unknown. It is one of those monuments that has simply stayed put while the world reorganised itself around it.

Standing stones of this kind were erected throughout Ireland during the Bronze Age, though their precise purposes remain debated; they may have marked boundaries, burial sites, or places of ritual significance. This particular example rises to roughly two metres above the present ground level, tapering only slightly from a base width of 0.85 metres to 0.7 metres at the top, and measures 0.37 metres deep at the base. Its long axis runs east-northeast to west-southwest, an orientation that may or may not carry astronomical meaning but is at least consistent with how many such stones were positioned across the Irish landscape. The fact that the surrounding ground has accumulated around the base means the stone's original height could have been greater still. It was identified by the landowners, Jonathan Harvey and Diana Morrison, on whose property it sits beside an area of rough grazing and heathland.

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