Standing stone, Caherbarnagh, Co. Clare

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Stone Monuments

Standing stone, Caherbarnagh, Co. Clare

On a south-facing slope at Caherbarnagh in County Clare, a prehistoric standing stone rises nearly two metres from the pasture, overlooking the sea to the south.

What gives it a quietly domestic air, despite its evident antiquity, is the slight hollow worn into its surface by generations of cattle using it as a scratching post. The stone has been doing something useful in this field for a very long time.

The stone itself is irregularly shaped, oriented north to south, and tapers as it rises, narrowing from roughly 0.8 metres wide at the base to 0.37 metres at the top, where it finishes in a sloped point. At ground level, partially overgrown with grass, there appear to be packing stones to the east and west, the kind of deliberate arrangement used to stabilise a standing stone when it was first erected, with additional loose stones scattered around the base. Standing stones of this type are found throughout Ireland, generally assigned to the Bronze Age or earlier, though pinning down a precise date or purpose for any individual example is rarely straightforward. They may have marked boundaries, routes, or burials, or served ceremonial functions that left no other trace. This one was brought to the attention of the National Monuments Service by a local man, Tom Moloney.

The stone sits in working farmland, and the cattle that have worn that hollow into its surface are presumably still around. Visitors should expect a pastoral rather than a monumental setting, the kind of place where prehistory and everyday agricultural life have simply continued alongside each other without much ceremony.

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Pete F
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