Irish circle-quirks? | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

suave harv Oct 5, 2004 18:43:21

Whilst in Cork earlier this year, I noticed at the first few stone circles I visited, (Lettergorman South, Templebryan and Ballyvacky) there were quartz stones iside the circles. But they looked as if they had been pushed there.

A few days later, at Knockareen Stone Circle, I saw two more quartz stones. This time, they were outside the circle, like two 'outliers' that could be seen whilst looking over the 'recumbant'.

Three queries then. .

1) Do you think the quartz stones in Lettergorman South, Templebryan and Ballyvacky are field clearance? The farmer finding it easy to push outlying the stone into the circle, rather than a field boundry?

2) Are quartz outliers an Irish thing only?. . the only UK circles I've seen involving quartz are Boscawen-Un, which has a quartz stone as part of the ring.

Pete G Oct 5, 2004 18:53:09

Replying to suave harv

Duloe stone circle in Cornwall is all quartz.
I found a single quartz stone at the site of old Chapel longbarrow on fyfield down recently.
PeteG

FourWinds Oct 5, 2004 19:58:18

Replying to suave harv

Quartz was extremely important to the Irish. Quartz veins appear in more standing stone than I care to think about. There are a handfull of single quartz standing stones and Co Mayo has a load of quartz stone rows.

The quartz centre stone and/or outliers in the Cork circles seems to be peculiar to them. Surprisingly there isn't a stone circle made entirely from quartz stones like Duloe - although many are quartzite.

Perhaps the lack of an entirely quartz circle somehow defines it's specialness to the Irish. It does seem reserved for outliers or centre stones. I don't know of a circle that has any solid quartz orthostats.

The Irish name for quartz is grianchloch (scuse spelling), which means Sun Stone.

juamei Oct 5, 2004 20:47:42

Replying to suave harv

I think Aubrey Burl mentions a few circles in Scotland that had quartz scattered inside them.