Standing stone, Turoe, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Stone Monuments
Two large lumps of granite once sat in a field in east Galway, close to the north-west of the Rath of Feewore and near the original position of the celebrated Turoe Stone.
They were recorded in 1944, measured, and then, apparently, forgotten. When the site was inspected again in September 1984, neither could be found. No surface trace remained. Whether they were buried, removed, or simply absorbed into the working landscape of the surrounding pastureland is not recorded.
The archaeologist Raftery noted the two stones in 1944, giving their dimensions as 85 by 90 centimetres and 135 by 120 centimetres respectively. They sat in the vicinity of the original location of the Turoe Stone, the elaborately carved Iron Age granite boulder now housed at Turoe Pet Farm nearby, which is one of the finest examples of La Tène decorative carving in Ireland. The Rath of Feewore, beside which these granite lumps were recorded, is a rath, that is a roughly circular earthen enclosure typically used as a farmstead during the early medieval period. A separate standing stone, a single upright prehistoric marker, survives in a small coniferous plantation about 60 metres to the north of the rath, suggesting this corner of County Galway was once a more densely marked landscape than it appears today.