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Fieldnotes
| The GPS reading above is for the obvious standing stone, though the first sight over the gate is the horned boulder. Sketched by Webster almost eighty years ago and described as a "demi-dolmen", he proposed that it and the recumbent pillar immediately to the east were the remains of some type of monument.(1) Jack Roberts wrote that it could be "loosely classed as a cromlech".(2). My suspicion is that it may have been an upright block that has sagged and split. The main cut smoothly separates the centre, forming a sort of dry megalithic sandwich, while the upper portion is bisected into two further pieces, both resting on the lower. The horn effect is quite striking. Bronze trumpets sounding a bull call while flames and figures dance. Maybe not, but who knows? The "anomalous stone group" described by the Inventory is about 50m north and comprises a standing stone and a prostrate slab.(3) The compilers seem to have missed the stone described by Roberts, that now forms part of the hedge and which prompts the tantalising possibility of a three, or even four, stone arrangement. Webster's sketch shows the field before the wall was erected; then containing the two standing stones, the grounded slab and a fine stretch of empty grass as far as the house at Quaker's crossroads. From a position in the centre of the triangle, and looking southish - parallel to a line between the two uprights, your gaze travels straight across to the large boulder. Contact. (1) Webster, 'Rude Stone Monuments in West Cork', JCHAS 35, 1930; 35. (2) Roberts, 'Exploring West Cork', 1988, Ch(1) 39; 44 (3) Archaeological Inventory of County Cork, Voume 1, West Cork, 1992, 926; 113. |
Posted by gjrk6th June 2008ce Edited 13th December 2008ce
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