I've wanted to visit this row since I saw RedBrickDream's photos here a year ago or more. The setting and the arrangement is just superlative, hats off to whoever chose this spot and picked the stones, they really had a very good eye.
The row is peculiar, in a funny kind of way it reminds me of those cartoons you see of the mother duck leading the ugly ducklings across the road. Its a little overgrown now since the older photos, whatever lived in this field must have ate that typical rush-like grass. The sheep that live here now sure dont. Someone also left one of those horrible large black plastic sheets that they cover bales with, lumped between the last, smallest stone and the second last. I tried removing it but that, and the massive digger a hundred yards away took away a little of the magic of the visit, just a little bit.
As in the other fieldnotes, this is a bugger to get to, the driveway past the old farmhouse is now a swimming pool and all the fields are serioulsy boggy. Bring wellies when you come, but do come.
Ardrah Stone Row is difficult to find and access. We sought permission from a very suspicious farmer with the strongest Irish accent I've ever heard (we both repeated everything to each other at least twice). The Farmer insisted that we were some way short of Kealkill but after I'd got my map out and explained to him that it was Adrah we were looking for, he positively gushed vague directions. Following the lane northwards, through a gate we entered a field where we could plainly see the row. It was here that I understood why the farmer had asked whether I was intending to change out of my sturdy walking books. Waders might have been more appropriate. Getting nearer to the row than about 500 feet proved almost impossible. After circling the site for about 45 minutes when we attempted to dodge noisy cows, scale banks, ditches, streams and barbed wire we eventually got into the grounds of the abandonned farm house from which the site can be accessed.
Myler's report on this alignment in his "An Archaeological survey of the Mealagh Valley" includes the following observations "The largest south western stone is 9 ft high, 3 ft wide and 2.5 ft thick. The adjacent stone measures 3 ft high, 2 ft wide and 1.5 thick. The next one is 4.5 ft high, 4 ft wide and 2 ft thick. The north eastern stone is 3ft high, 2 ft wide and 2 ft thick".
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Posted by CianMcLiam
Posted by RedBrickDream
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