25/8/07
It's hard not to stop by here when I'm in the vicinity. Late August is probably not the best time of year though, what with all the summer growth. The track to the main 2 bullauns is worn, but not hugely; somebody visits these powerful stones now and again. These 2 could easily get overgrown and 'lost'.
Finding the double and the single in the forestry plantation to the east is a challenge. Head high heather blocks you. The fifth one, a double, broken through its larger basin, is moss-covered; there's also grass coming up through the fracture.
If the little cottage beside this place ever came up for sale…
I searched high and low for the bullaun that's marked on the OS map at S977949 but to no avail. I was about to give up when I noticed a beaten track leading from the forestry entrance where I had parked. I followed this and it led me out of the forestry and into the field where the bullaun is marked. Continuing along this I crossed the stream and BAM, Brittas 4 with its four single and one double bullaun was there in front of me. I can safely say that this came as a total shock and a surprise to me. Continuing further up the track about 10 metres further on is Brittas 3 with its four bullauns.
Both of these stones are earthfast. They sit there for all the world like magical vessels as the small brook bubbles nearby. Seems there's a lot more to this place than what first meets the eye. According to the Arch. Inventory of Co. Wicklow there's "a large, earthfast granite boulder with four basins…" which I take to be what I have called Brittas 3. With the two that Fourwinds has added, thats four bullauns with 50 metres of each other. Awesome!
A fifth bullaun at this site! I returned here to show a friend III and IV then decided to have a scout around for I and II and came across another one. It has 2 bullauns, a very shallow one about 7 cms across and 3 cms deep (almost just a cup-mark) and a much deeper ovoid one, about 12 cms on the longer axis and very deep. The rock has fissured through the larger bullan and seems to me to have been moved to where it now lies, possibly causing this damage.
I never located I and II.
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Posted by ryaner
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