There is a standing stone in Glendalough, County Waterford, that no longer stands. At some point after 1990, this modest but formally recorded prehistoric monument was removed from the western side of a quiet north-south valley, leaving behind only its description on paper and the faint question of where it went.

The stone itself was not especially large. Cut from conglomerate, a sedimentary rock made up of rounded fragments cemented together over geological time, it had a rectangular cross-section measuring roughly 0.8 metres by 0.5 metres, and rose to a height of 1.2 metres. It was oriented on a north-west to south-east axis, a directional alignment that appears with some regularity among Irish standing stones, though the reasons behind such orientations remain a matter of discussion among archaeologists. Standing stones of this kind are generally associated with the Bronze Age, though they are notoriously difficult to date without excavation, and their original purposes, whether ritual, territorial, or commemorative, are rarely certain. What is certain here is that this one is gone, its absence as much a part of its story as anything it might once have marked.