Standing stone - pair, Tanrego, Co. Sligo

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone – pair, Tanrego, Co. Sligo

One of these two stones is missing.

It was not lost to time or weather but buried, deliberately, during field clearance works at some point in the past, and it remains underground somewhere nearby. What stands on this south-east-facing slope at Tanrego, in County Sligo, is the survivor: a large upright boulder, roughly 1.8 metres tall and tapering toward the top into an approximate triangle. On its southern face, near the middle, is a small circular hole, barely four centimetres across and two deep, which appears to be a natural feature of the rock rather than any human working. It is an odd little detail on an already quietly odd monument.

Standing stones are among the most common prehistoric features in the Irish landscape, yet their original purposes remain genuinely uncertain. They may have marked boundaries, graves, routeways, or ceremonial sites, and pairs in particular are sometimes associated with alignment, whether astronomical or topographical. At Tanrego, the setting is suggestive. Knocknarae, the great hill west of Sligo town whose summit carries the unexcavated cairn traditionally associated with Queen Medb, is visible to the north. The Ox Mountains define the southern skyline. The stone sits just below the top of a ridge, positioned as though the surrounding landscape was part of its purpose. About 80 metres to the north-west lies a rath, a circular earthwork enclosure of the kind typically associated with early medieval settlement and farming, which suggests that this corner of Sligo was in active use across multiple periods. Whether the rath and the standing stone were ever meaningfully connected is unknown, but the proximity is worth noting.

The stone stands in pasture and is accessible to a visitor willing to look for it on the slope below the ridge. The buried companion, according to local knowledge, was removed and interred during land clearance, its exact location unrecorded.

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Pete F
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