Having had poor luck finding the standing stones south-west of here (they're mostly destroyed), I hadn't much hope heading back into Cork down this road. Unawares, I had already passed one stone and a massive rath and had half decided to give up when on glancing into a football field on my right I spotted this, admittedly hard to miss, giant.
There was a man jogging laps of the pitch, and a couple of kids hanging out around the truck container changing rooms, and there was me, snapping away, completely enchanted by the incongruous siting of this stone (of course it's not the stone that's out of place – it was here first). The man stopped his exertions to ask me if I knew what I was photographing – a standing stone says I, a gallán said he.
This almost triangular stone was once one of a pair (see below) and towers over 3 metres tall, almost tapering to a point as it rises. There is one cup-mark high up on its eastern face. Quite a strange prospect, standing there on the touch-line, waiting for its game.
Description: On flat patch of ground, in rolling pasture, on N side of Shournagh River basin. One stone remains, long axis NE-SW; it is 2.2m L, 0.65m T and 3m H; second stone, standing in 1934, stood c. 2.6m to SW (O Nualláin 1988, 245, no. 99). According to local information, second stone fell during storm on Christmas Eve 1966. Twelve stones found in 'immediate locality' of stone pair, 'some much larger, lying on the ground partly buried in the boggy soil of the place' (Caulfield 1866, 293). Local tradition that there were at least 7 stones in this field.
The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 3: Mid Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.