Standing stone, Friarstown North, Co. Limerick

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Friarstown North, Co. Limerick

When the small stones propping up a large limestone slab in County Limerick were disturbed, what came to light underneath was unexpected: human bones, described at the time as being of an extraordinary size.

That detail, recorded by the nineteenth-century antiquarian John O'Donovan during his work for the Ordnance Survey Letters, has attached itself to this otherwise quietly unremarkable standing stone ever since. The bones are long gone, and no further excavation appears to have followed, leaving the circumstances of their deposition entirely open.

The stone itself sits on a south-facing slope in rolling pasture in Friarstown North, with open views stretching to the south and east. It is an upright limestone slab, roughly 1.9 metres wide and between 1.5 and 1.7 metres high, with its long axis running east-southeast to west-northwest. The surface carries several weathering fissures, as one would expect from exposed limestone over a considerable period. At its base, a low mound, measuring about 2.7 metres across and only 0.26 metres in height, supports the stone, and several smaller limestone blocks are set around its base as revetment, essentially acting as stabilising kerbs. O'Donovan's account, quoted by O'Kelly in a 1942 to 1943 publication, described the stone as around 2.1 metres high at the time of his visit, suggesting some settling or measurement variation over the intervening years. Notably, neither O'Donovan's record nor O'Kelly's commentary placed the stone on the Ordnance Survey map of the period, which is itself a small puzzle, since O.S. surveyors were generally methodical about marking field monuments.

Access is across farmland, so permission from the landowner is the practical first step. The south-facing slope means the stone catches reasonable light through much of the day, which makes the weathering fissures and the texture of the limestone easier to read in person than in photographs. The low mound at the base is subtle enough that it could easily be overlooked, but it is worth crouching down to examine the arrangement of the smaller revetment stones, which give a clearer sense of how deliberately the monument was constructed and maintained. The site is not signposted, and its absence from historic mapping means it rewards the kind of visitor who arrives already knowing what to look for.

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