Standing stone, Lissard More, Co. Mayo

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Lissard More, Co. Mayo

In the townland of Lissard More in County Mayo, there is a standing stone that cannot be visited, not because access is difficult, but because the stone no longer stands.

It lies buried, along with the other prehistoric features that once surrounded it, sealed beneath reclaimed agricultural land. What was a visible, upright monument for who knows how many centuries is now entirely invisible, its location on the surface unmarked and unremarkable.

The Office of Public Works topographical files from 1947 recorded the stone as a pillar-like form, roughly square in cross-section at 0.6 metres by 0.6 metres, and standing 1.2 metres tall. It did not stand alone. Approximately 2.4 metres to its north sat a megalithic structure, the kind of term that covers a range of prehistoric stone arrangements, from burial chambers to ceremonial enclosures. A further 6.7 metres beyond that lay a holed stone, a type of prehistoric feature in which a perforation was deliberately worked through the rock, the purpose of which is still debated by archaeologists. The three features formed a loose grouping, spread across a short stretch of ground, each distinct in character. At some point after 1947, all three were removed from their original positions and buried as part of land reclamation work, the draining and levelling of boggy or rough ground to make it productive for farming. It was a common enough fate for low-lying field monuments throughout the mid-twentieth century in Ireland, when agricultural improvement schemes proceeded with little requirement to preserve what lay in their path.

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Pete F
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