This carved stone was found buried in a field nearby many years ago and was temporarily set into a wall before being moved to the front of a farmers cottage for safe keeping.
The cottage now lies in a forgotten pile of stone in the corner of a field and I was not very hopeful of locating the rock art. However, after hacking through the undergrowth for a while this stone stood out as the largest on top of the pile and moving a decaying tree trunk revealed the carvings underneath, still in an excellent state of preservation.
It is the only example of rock art so far discovered in Co. Westmeath.
Great piece of prehistoric detective work Ken. Nice carving!
Thanks, it is a really nice example, there's at least six cup marks on it as well, better photo of those to follow.
Lovely photographs, nice job. When I rediscovered this stone at Ballinlug in 2008/9 it and the rubble bank were entirely overgrown with trees and the stone was covered in moss. There are actually at least 4 cup and ring marked stones from westmeath- have a look at JRSAI vol 140 2010.