Stone row, Glantane, Co. Cork

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Stone Monuments

Stone row, Glantane, Co. Cork

Three upright stones stand in level pasture near Glantane in mid-Cork, arranged in a line that stretches just over five metres from end to end.

They are modest in number but deliberate in placement, oriented along an east-north-east to west-south-west axis and positioned so that they overlook the Keel River valley to the south. Stone rows of this kind, a prehistoric monument type found in some concentration across Cork and Kerry, are generally thought to date to the Bronze Age, though their precise function remains a matter of debate among archaeologists. Alignment with solar or lunar events has been proposed; so has association with ritual or funerary activity in the surrounding landscape.

What gives this particular row its quiet character is the graduation of its stones. The north-easternmost is the smallest, less than a metre tall, and the next stone, about a metre further along, is roughly the same height. The south-westernmost stone, set some two metres beyond that, rises to nearly two and a half metres, making it more than twice the height of its companions. This increase in height from one end to the other is a feature that O Nualláin, cataloguing Cork stone rows in 1988, documented across numerous examples in the region, suggesting it may have been an intentional design principle rather than the result of later disturbance or subsidence. The tallest stone here is also the broadest, lending the row a sense of culmination at its south-western end.

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Pete F
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