A Standing Stone?

“It was practically dark late one evening when myself an a friend came across this standing stone as we were descending the slopes of the mountain in the Glenpatrick area near Rathgormack”. Quite surprised and excited  by the find, I recently  returned to the site check out and see if it could possibly be an authentic monolith”.

The stone, which is situated under a row of tall pine trees, is embedded into a field boundary which is made of an earth and stone bank. It measures 1.5 metres tall, is 0.75m at its widest and is 0.5 m thick. It is oriented in a N-S direction and leans slightly to the NE.

The question is  - did the stone originally stand alone on this site and later became part of the boundary as it was constructed or was it placed into the boundary during its construction.

Among the theories of what standing stones represented, is that they were boundary markers. This, coupled with the stone's orientation and its height could easily leave one to surmise that it is a genuine monolith.

Submitted by P. Duggan - November 2010

Photo © Pat Duggan