Standing stone, Ludden More, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Stone Monuments
At 595 feet above sea level, on the highest point of a rocky crag in County Limerick, a standing stone and the remnants of a kerb circle occupy a summit with views in every direction.
What makes this particular combination quietly arresting is not just its elevation, but the way it has accumulated names across centuries. The stone itself was once recorded as Bouchall Breagha, the circle around it is known locally as Leaba na Muice, meaning the Pig's Bed, and the hill beneath both goes by Ludden More. Three names, three different layers of local memory attached to a single prehistoric arrangement of stone.
A kerb circle, in broad terms, is a ring of low stones set edge to edge, defining a circular boundary rather than standing upright in the manner of the more familiar megalithic rings. The standing stone at Ludden More sits within the south-eastern quadrant of just such a circle, a position that may or may not have been deliberately chosen but is consistent enough to have been noted by every observer who visited. The name Boughilbreaga appears on the 1840 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, and by 1897 the OSi 25-inch map depicts the pillar as a rectangular upright within that same south-eastern section. A reference in Barry's 1900 survey confirms the arrangement, though he noted the pillar-stone was not marked on the maps of his day. When the Archaeological Survey of Ireland recorded the monument in 2007, the stone measured 2.4 metres in height, 1.3 metres across, and just 0.3 metres in depth, rectangular in plan, with its long axis running north to south. It remained upright.
The site sits in elevated scrubby pasture, the kind of terrain that discourages casual wandering but rewards those who seek it out with genuinely open sightlines. No formal path or interpretive signage is noted for this location, so a visit requires both navigational confidence and appropriate footwear for rough ground. Satellite imagery from 2011 onwards confirms the stone is still visible and standing within the circle. Anyone approaching should look first for the kerb stones of Leaba na Muice at ground level, easily overlooked from a distance, and then for the taller upright rising from the south-eastern arc of that ring.