CianMcLiam

This really is a beauty, it’s also an absolute bugger to get to. It sits two or three fields from the road depending on which way you come. This field is massive and yet seems to have no access gates anywhere! They must airlift the cows in. I ended up scrambling over the unusually high and broad field wall much further down the valley and walking back up. On the way back the bullocks had moved fields and cut off my escape route, had to climb a few more hedges to get back to the car.

The circle itself is wonderful, the stones have a heavily rubbed smooth surface and most are shot with quite a lot of quartz. The recumbent is very altar-like as Fourwinds has said and all the stones have a very heavy ‘presence’. Its a real pity the ground around them is so badly trampled by itchy cows. The view is surprisingly good and walking further down the hill allows a view of the stones against the skyline.

This looks like, a very nice but incomplete circle. I couldn’t get closer than the gate unfortunately because of a swarm of bullocks. I had ‘not great’ written on my map beside this one so was not intending on going to see until I spotted it through the field gate. Curse those bullocks! It does look pretty good from the gate even though the trees in FW’s pictures seem much closer in real life.

This ruined stone row lies just to the south of the forest track towards Carrigagulla NE stone circle and is just barely visible among the trees as you pass about 100 yards from the main road. The tallest stone would probably have stood between 10 and 12 feet high but its hard to tell as the forest floor is covered in a deep layer of moss, roots and leaves. This stone must have fallen quite recently as it now rests on the stump of a cut down tree. There is at least one stone broken, its small, thin stump stands very near to the remaining standing stone which is wearing a wonderful jacket of thick moss. A medium sized slab about 4-5ft (visible) in length lies beside the large fallen stone, it is almost free of moss but you can’t help wondering what this row (or whatever it was) may have looked originally. Probably quite impressive I’d say.

It’s likely the very closely planted trees root systems caused the tallest stone to fall.

Sits about 20 yards from the track and is very easy to get to.