Standing stone, Ownagarry, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Stone Monuments
A single upright stone rising nearly two and a half metres from flat pastureland in County Kerry does not announce itself with drama.
It simply stands there, as it has for millennia, in a field south of the River Laune and roughly a hundred metres east of the Cottoners river, asking nothing of the landscape except to be noticed.
Standing stones of this kind are among the most enigmatic monuments left by prehistoric communities in Ireland. Their precise purposes remain debated: some appear to mark boundaries or routeways, others may have had ritual or astronomical significance, and many were erected during the Bronze Age, though firm dating is rarely straightforward without excavation. This particular example is notably regular in form, measuring 1.3 metres by 0.8 metres at its base and oriented on a northeast to southwest axis, a alignment that recurs at other standing stones across the country and may or may not be coincidental. Its location in level pastureland, rather than on a prominent ridge or hilltop, sets it somewhat apart from the more theatrically sited examples found elsewhere on the Iveragh Peninsula.