Standing stone, Knock, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Stone Monuments
On a south-east-facing slope above the Glen River valley in north Cork, there is nothing left to see.
That, in itself, is the point. Two large standing stones once occupied this ground, and their absence is as telling as their presence might have been.
In 1934, a researcher named Bowman recorded what he called two 'dallans', a term for tall upright stones, often associated with early Christian or prehistoric monuments in Ireland. The pair were aligned east to west, set seven feet apart, and were substantial: the eastern stone measured roughly five feet nine inches tall, the western one slightly smaller at five feet eight. According to local information passed on by Paul Walsh, the two stones had been positioned parallel to one another on either side of a gap, possibly marking a passage or threshold of some kind. Sometime during the 1970s, both were removed. No surface trace remains today, and the slope gives no indication that anything ever stood there.