Standing stone, Gullaun, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Gullaun, Co. Kerry

At Gullaun in County Kerry, a single upright stone rises just over two metres from the ground, positioned close to the centre of a ring-barrow.

That combination is worth pausing on. A ring-barrow is a burial monument of the Bronze Age, typically a low earthen mound enclosed by a circular ditch and bank. Standing stones are common enough across the Irish landscape, but finding one planted deliberately near the heart of such a funerary enclosure suggests a deliberate and probably ceremonial relationship between the two features, one that nobody now can fully explain.

The stone itself is roughly rectangular in both plan and elevation, measuring 1.6 metres across and 0.74 metres in depth, with a recorded height of 2.07 metres. It is orientated along a northeast to southwest axis and leans noticeably to the northeast, whether through subsidence over the centuries or by original intent is unclear. The pairing of a standing stone with a ring-barrow is not unheard of in Irish prehistory, but it remains an unusual arrangement, and the particular alignment here, northeast to southwest, may once have held astronomical or seasonal significance for the people who erected it, though no specific interpretation can be pressed too far on the available evidence.

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Pete F
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