Standing stone, Barrees, Co. Cork

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Barrees, Co. Cork

In the blanket bog at Barrees in West Cork, a rectangular standing stone rises just over a metre from the ground, orientated along a northeast to southwest axis.

It is not a dramatic monument by any measure, roughly the dimensions of a sturdy gatepost, but that is rather the point. Standing stones of this kind are among the most quietly persistent features of the Irish landscape, planted by human hands in prehistory and left to whatever the centuries brought, in this case a low-lying bog that has slowly crept around the base.

The stone measures 1.12 metres in height, with a cross-section of 0.66 by 0.53 metres, making it a solid, blocky presence rather than the tapering pillar associated with more celebrated examples. Its northeast to southwest alignment may be deliberate, a feature noted in many Irish standing stones that has led researchers to consider possible astronomical or ritual significance, though no firm conclusions attach to this particular stone. It was recorded by O'Brien in 1970 and later included in the Archaeological Inventory of County Cork, the county-by-county survey that catalogued West Cork's prehistoric and early historic remains. The blanket bog in which it sits, a type of waterlogged, peat-forming landscape that developed across much of the Irish uplands and lowlands after the Neolithic clearance of woodland, would have looked quite different when the stone was first erected, possibly open farmland or pasture in a period when the climate was warmer and drier than it later became.

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Pete F
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