Stone row, Knockrower, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Stone Monuments

Stone row, Knockrower, Co. Kerry

One of the three stones in this prehistoric alignment at Knockrower lies flat on the ground, its surface cracked and brittle, the direct result of a fire that was deliberately set upon it.

The intention, according to the landowner, was simply to break it up. That the stone survived at all gives the monument an oddly defiant quality. Stone rows, alignments of two or more upright stones set in a line, are found across Kerry and the wider southwest of Ireland, and their original purpose remains genuinely uncertain; theories range from astronomical sighting lines to ceremonial processional routes, though none has been conclusively established.

Recorded by O'Hare in 1996, the alignment runs roughly northeast to southwest across a field of pasture, covering an overall length of approximately 8.3 metres. The two standing stones are both sandstone blocks of broadly similar dimensions, the first reaching around 1.55 metres in height, the second slightly taller at roughly the same measure. A field fence has been constructed directly against the east face of the first stone, and a drain dug around its base, small practical interventions that speak to the long, unromantic coexistence of working farmland and ancient monuments. The fallen third stone is the largest of the group, measuring 2.45 metres in length, and is composed of a calcareous sandstone threaded with a quartz vein, which may partly explain why it attracted the attention of anyone hoping to quarry the landscape for useful material. The site sits at a point where the ground to the west drops away in three directions, opening up a wide panorama that takes in the Paps Mountains to the south, Carrauntoohil visible further to the southwest, and Currow Hill rising to the northwest.

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