Standing stone, Ulacha, Co. Kerry

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Ulacha, Co. Kerry

On the eastern slopes of a northern spur of Lateevemore, in the rough pastureland of Ulacha in County Kerry, a single stone stands roughly aligned north to south, doing very little to explain itself.

It measures 1.42 metres high and up to 0.8 metres wide, tapering towards thin edges while thickening to around 0.4 metres at its centre, giving it a lens-like profile in cross-section. The land around it drops away to the east and south-east, draining eventually towards a tributary of the Milltown river, and the stone sits in that slope with the quiet indifference common to prehistoric monuments that have outlasted every human structure in their vicinity.

Standing stones of this kind are found across the Dingle Peninsula and the wider Corca Dhuibhne region, a name referring to the territory of the ancient people who gave the peninsula much of its early cultural character. Their original purposes are genuinely uncertain; proposed functions range from territorial or route markers to sites connected with burial or ritual, and in many cases no single explanation satisfies. What can be said of this particular example is that it was recorded as part of J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, a foundational catalogue of the area's prehistoric and early historic remains. The stone's orientation along a north-south axis is a detail that survives from that original description, though what significance, if any, that alignment held for whoever erected it remains an open question.

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Pete F
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