Standing stone, Flemingstown, Co. Kerry

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Flemingstown, Co. Kerry

The Ordnance Survey maps have it slightly wrong.

The standing stone at Flemingstown is plotted a little to the north-west of where it actually stands, a small cartographic slip that means anyone navigating by the sheet alone will find themselves scanning the wrong patch of ground. It is a modest thing when you do locate it: a low, thin slab of stone, just over a metre tall, tapering from a base width of roughly eighteen centimetres to a gently rounded top, and oriented east to west across the rough wet pastureland on the northern slopes of Flemingstown mountain.

Standing stones are among the most enigmatic survivals in the Irish landscape. Erected most commonly during the Bronze Age, though some date earlier or later, their precise purposes remain debated, with theories ranging from boundary markers and commemorative monuments to astronomical alignments and ritual focal points. This one sits at the head of the Kilduff valley, a quiet and somewhat exposed position on the mountain's lower northern slopes. Its dimensions, recorded by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, place it at 1.18 metres in length and 1.05 metres above the ground at its highest point, making it a relatively unimposing example compared to the tall, blade-like pillars found elsewhere on the peninsula. What it lacks in drama it compensates for in situation, occupying a valley-head location that feels genuinely remote, the kind of ground that sees few casual visitors and retains a certain quiet strangeness as a result.

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