Stone circle - multiple-stone, Doughill, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Stone Monuments
In the level pasture at the foot of Knockbrack's western slope, in County Kerry, there is a stone circle that no longer exists to be seen.
This is not a ruin in the conventional sense, with toppled stones and grassy mounds hinting at former grandeur. There is simply nothing visible at all, which makes the detailed historical record of what once stood here all the more arresting.
The circle was recorded by John Windele, a Cork antiquarian who documented it in a manuscript now held by the Royal Irish Academy. His notes describe sixteen stones, none taller than about 1.2 metres, arranged in a ring roughly 9 metres across and open at the north-west, either by original design or through the later removal of a stone. His accompanying sketch suggests the presence of an axial stone, a feature typical of the Cork-Kerry type of multiple-stone circle, a Bronze Age form found across the south-west of Ireland in which stones are graded in height towards a recumbent or axial stone placed opposite the entrance. Seán Ó Nualláin, writing in 1984, confirmed the classification and estimated the circle originally comprised seventeen upright stones, known as orthostats, enclosing an area approximately 9 metres in diameter. The monument sits roughly 60 metres south of a small stream, a modest and unremarkable landscape setting that would have looked quite different when the circle was in use thousands of years ago. Whether the stones were removed for field clearance, building material, or simply absorbed gradually into the soil is not recorded.