Standing stone - pair, Gearha, Co. Kerry

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone – pair, Gearha, Co. Kerry

On a low rise above the eastern bank of the Kealduff river in south Kerry, two standing stones sit close enough together that the space between them has filled over the centuries with loose debris.

Pairs of standing stones are less common than solitary examples and carry their own quiet peculiarity: the relationship between two stones, their orientation, their proximity, raises questions that a single upright does not.

The larger of the two stones stands 1.75 metres high and is aligned roughly north-north-east to south-south-west, inclining slightly towards the south-west. Its base measures 1.1 metres by 0.65 metres. The second stone, described as a squat boulder rather than a true upright, sits less than a metre to the south-west and reaches 1.3 metres at its southern edge, with a base of 1.1 metres by 0.55 metres. The accumulation of stone debris packed against and between them is most likely the result of generations of field clearance, farmers pushing loose rock off the land and letting it gather around whatever fixed point was already there. Researcher Ó Nualláin noted this in 1988, and the detail matters: it is a reminder that prehistoric monuments are rarely preserved in a tidy, untouched state. They become part of working landscapes, acquiring new layers of human activity around them even as their original purpose recedes beyond recovery.

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