But the standing stone at Gortloughra has been placed with a precision that resists any reading of it as accidental. Rectangular in cross-section and oriented along a northeast-southwest axis, its long, flat faces are angled deliberately rather than simply dropped into the earth wherever the ground was softest.

The stone measures 3.1 metres in height, with a face roughly 1.4 metres wide and 0.5 metres deep, making it a substantial presence in the landscape even when half-obscured by vegetation. Standing stones of this kind are among the most enigmatic monuments in the Irish countryside. Erected during the Bronze Age in most recorded cases, their precise purposes remain contested, with theories ranging from territorial markers to astronomical sight lines to funerary monuments. What can be said with more confidence is that their placement was rarely careless. Here, the stone sits on elevated ground overlooking the valleys of the Owvane and Gortloughra rivers to the northwest and north, a position that would have made it visible across a considerable distance and that may itself have been the point.

The site sits in scrub, so the approach will not be entirely clear going, and the vegetation can obscure both the stone itself and the valley views that give the location its geographical logic. The northeast-southwest alignment is worth pausing over once you are there, particularly if you are visiting around the solstices, when such orientations can resolve into something more than coincidence.