Tinneel

Nearest town:
Rosscarbery (2km SSW)
OS reference:
W2940438186
OS sheet:
89
Latitude:
51° 35' 31.11 N
Longitude:
9° 1' 7.69 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Tinneel (Standing Stones) by gjrk

You could really let your imagination run with that... The split (?) boulder from above, more or less, and from the south.

Image credit: Gordon Kingston
gjrk
gjrk Jun 5, 2008
Image of Tinneel (Standing Stones) by gjrk

The horn-like protrusions on the western side of the boulder.

Image credit: Gordon Kingston
gjrk
gjrk Jun 5, 2008
Image of Tinneel (Standing Stones) by gjrk

The boulder, from close-by, looking south.

Image credit: Gordon Kingston
gjrk
gjrk Jun 5, 2008
Image of Tinneel (Standing Stones) by gjrk

Looking west to the hills. Scoot over here and you’re into the Carrigfadda-dominated valley.

Image credit: Gordon Kingston
gjrk
gjrk Jun 5, 2008
Image of Tinneel (Standing Stones) by gjrk

All three stones, including the fallen (?) slab, looking east.

Image credit: Gordon Kingston
gjrk
gjrk Jun 5, 2008
Image of Tinneel (Standing Stones) by gjrk

The second erect stone is visible in the field fence, centre-image.

Image credit: Gordon Kingston
gjrk
gjrk Jun 5, 2008
Image of Tinneel (Standing Stones) by gjrk

Standing in the centre of the stone arrangement looking south to the boulder, on a line parallel to the two erect stones.

Image credit: Gordon Kingston
gjrk
gjrk Jun 5, 2008

Articles

Tinneel

gjrk
gjrk Jun 6, 2008

The GPS reading above is for the obvious standing stone, though the first sight over the gate is the horned boulder. Sketched by Webster almost eighty years ago and described as a “demi-dolmen”, he proposed that it and the recumbent pillar immediately to the east were the remains of some type of monument.(1) Jack Roberts wrote that it could be “loosely classed as a cromlech”.(2).

My suspicion is that it may have been an upright block that has sagged and split. The main cut smoothly separates the centre, forming a sort of dry megalithic sandwich, while the upper portion is bisected into two further pieces, both resting on the lower.

The horn effect is quite striking. Bronze trumpets sounding a bull call while flames and figures dance. Maybe not, but who knows?

The “anomalous stone group” described by the Inventory is about 50m north and comprises a standing stone and a prostrate slab.(3) The compilers seem to have missed the stone described by Roberts, that now forms part of the hedge and which prompts the tantalising possibility of a three, or even four, stone arrangement. Webster’s sketch shows the field before the wall was erected; then containing the two standing stones, the grounded slab and a fine stretch of empty grass as far as the house at Quaker’s crossroads. From a position in the centre of the triangle, and looking southish – parallel to a line between the two uprights, your gaze travels straight across to the large boulder. Contact.

(1) Webster, ‘Rude Stone Monuments in West Cork’, JCHAS 35, 1930; 35.
(2) Roberts, ‘Exploring West Cork’, 1988, Ch(1) 39; 44
(3) Archaeological Inventory of County Cork, Voume 1, West Cork, 1992, 926; 113.

Sites within 20km of Tinneel

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