Stone circle, Glengoole, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Stone Monuments
On top of Quinlan's Hill in County Tipperary, there is a stone circle that no longer exists to look at.
That is, in a sense, the whole point. The site sits on high ground with panoramic views in every direction, the kind of elevated position that prehistoric monument builders consistently favoured, and yet the monument itself has been levelled since it was last formally recorded, leaving nothing visible at ground level. What remains is essentially a coordinate, a description, and a small puzzle about what happened in between.
When the circle was recorded in 1938, it consisted of seven upright stones enclosing an oval area roughly 10 metres north to south and 27 metres east to west, with a single standing stone about 1.8 metres in diameter at its centre. Stone circles of this type, generally understood to date from the Bronze Age, were used for purposes that remain debated, though astronomical alignment, ceremonial gathering, and territorial marking all feature in the discussion. The asymmetrical internal dimensions recorded here, considerably wider east to west than north to south, are worth noting; they suggest either deliberate design or the kind of gradual distortion that comes from centuries of agricultural use. A ringfort, a circular enclosure of the early medieval period typically used as a defended farmstead, lies about 45 metres to the east, which hints at this patch of upland being returned to repeatedly across long stretches of time. At some point after 1938, the stones were removed or pushed flat, and the circle was effectively erased. No associated enclosure or platform is now detectable either.
For anyone who does make it to Quinlan's Hill, the grassland setting and the elevated position are intact even if the monument is not. The nearby ringfort to the east remains a separate recorded feature, and the broad views that made this hilltop significant to whoever raised those seven stones are unchanged.