This ancient monument, oriented north to south, once had a companion stone nearby, but local records tell a rather mundane end to that prehistoric marker; it was broken up for gravel sometime before the mid-20th century, according to local historian M.R. Colhoun. The surviving stone now stands in school grounds, a silent witness to millennia of human activity in this corner of Ireland.

Archaeological investigations in 2006 revealed intriguing evidence that may relate to the destroyed stone’s original location. During pre-development testing for a housing estate, archaeologist Dominic Delany uncovered a circular pit feature approximately 13 metres from the roadside, close to where the second stone was thought to have stood. The pit, about a metre in diameter and 0.42 metres deep, contained layers of silty clay mixed with charcoal, with a large sub-angular stone near its base. The oxidised clay at the bottom suggested this might have been a funerary pit, though no burnt bone was found to confirm this theory.

The discovery raises fascinating questions about the site’s original purpose. Could this pit have been the socket that once held the destroyed standing stone? Or does it represent something else entirely; perhaps a burial or ritual deposit associated with the stones? Standing stones in Ireland often mark significant prehistoric sites, serving as territorial markers, astronomical alignments, or memorial monuments. The presence of two stones here, recorded on Ordnance Survey maps from the 19th century, suggests this location held particular importance for the communities who erected them, likely during the Bronze Age when most of Ireland’s standing stones were raised.