That a domestic building should come to sit directly on an archaeological site is not, in rural Ireland, as rare as it ought to be, but it makes the case of Gortacloona a quietly melancholy one for anyone interested in what was there before.

The third edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, published in 1944, records not one but three stones at this location. Whether they formed a deliberate grouping, the remnants of a field boundary with prehistoric origins, or something else entirely is now difficult to say with any certainty. Standing stones in County Cork range considerably in character, from single tall pillars erected in the Bronze Age, often associated with burials or territorial marking, to smaller stones whose original purpose is genuinely unknown. Three stones in proximity might suggest a setting of some ritual or commemorative significance, though without surviving physical access to the site, that remains speculation. What the 1944 map confirms is that they were present and considered notable enough to record, and what subsequent development has done is complicate the picture considerably.