Standing stone - pair, Ráth Ciaráin, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Stone Monuments

Standing stone – pair, Ráth Ciaráin, Co. Kerry

On the Ordnance Survey maps, two standing stones are marked here, side by side on a southern spur of Kilkeaveragh mountain.

Visit today and you will find only one. The other was broken up and carted away sometime in the 1960s, leaving behind a gap in the landscape that the maps still refuse to acknowledge.

The survivor is a broad, flat-faced slab, oriented east to west, rising 2.15 metres from the ground and measuring 1.4 metres across at its base. Gallauns, as paired or solitary standing stones of this kind are known in Kerry Irish, were erected in prehistory for purposes that remain genuinely uncertain; alignment, boundary-marking, and ritual commemoration have all been proposed, though none has been conclusively established for any given site. What is clear is that this one was set in rolling pasture on a commanding rise, positioned so that it looks out over St Finan's Bay to the south-west. Whether the two stones once framed a sightline, marked a route, or held some other significance in relation to each other is now harder to assess, because the companion stone is simply gone. A second stone formerly lay a short distance to the west, according to local information gathered before its destruction.

The site sits on the Iveragh Peninsula, one of the finger-like headlands that define the south-west coast of Kerry, and the elevated position means the surviving gallaun is visible against a wide Atlantic backdrop. The loss of the second stone in the 1960s is the kind of quiet, unrecorded erasure that happened at many such sites across Ireland during a period when the practical demands of farming often outweighed any sense of archaeological obligation. What remains is still substantial, a significant slab of ancient intent, though the pairing that once gave this place its particular character exists now only on paper.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Standing stone – pair, Ráth Ciaráin, Co. Kerry. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement