Standing stone, Ballintlea, Co. Wexford

Co. Wexford |

Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Ballintlea, Co. Wexford

Some standing stones dominate a hillside or command a river crossing in ways that make their survival feel almost inevitable.

The one at Ballintlea, County Wexford, managed the opposite trick: it was recorded, measured, and then effectively swallowed by the ground. By 1987 it was no longer visible at surface level in the surrounding pasture, leaving behind little more than a cartographic ghost on an Ordnance Survey sheet.

The stone appears on the 1940 edition of the OS 6-inch map, placed on a south-west-facing slope above the Bann River, which runs on a roughly north-north-west to south-south-east axis, with the stream itself lying around 500 metres to the south-west. A fieldworker who recorded it in 1939 described it as bulbous in shape, with a base measuring approximately 35 centimetres by 30 centimetres and a height of around 90 centimetres. Standing stones are among the most enigmatic of prehistoric monument types; they appear across Ireland in a wide range of sizes and contexts, sometimes associated with burials or boundaries, sometimes apparently isolated, and their precise purpose in any given location is rarely recoverable. This one, modest in scale and quietly set into sloping ground overlooking the river valley, left only those few dimensions and that single adjective, bulbous, before it disappeared beneath the turf entirely.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Standing stone, Ballintlea, Co. Wexford. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement