CianMcLiam

This is a nice, if battered, stone circle. It is not a great stone circle however and hardly likely to cause awe in the casual visitor. Why then, when surrounded by some dramatic and downright jaw-dropping circles so nearby, are those with whetted appetites asked to fork out €2 to spend some time trying to figure out which end is up at Shronebirrane? No getting past it though and despite my indignant and incredulous look I had to hand over the cash to gain entry and a photocopied sheet with one of those B&W pics that is really just a square of blobs, if you stare long enough you might see the face of Jesus Christ or Juda Priest.

If you are really flush though you can walk the mountain path for another €4.

The circle itself is reduced to an arc of disjointed limbs, cowering nervously at the bottom of the cavernous hills surrounding it. The valley setting is spectacular but any sense of wonder is completly shattered by the bungalow plonked right beside the circle.

Much easier to find than I expected, it is well signposted from the centre of Castletownbere. Clearly a monument of local importance, it has very easy access and plenty of field space to allow you to stand back and consider how impressive it once must have been in its complete state. It would seem that destroying either one or both of the portals of these stone circles was sufficient to see off the pagan spectre and plenty of the stone circles in this part of the country have a buck-toothed appearance as a result.

Somehow this only adds to this site, the remaining stones couldn’t possibly appear more defiant and proud, this is one of those circles which seems to have a personality ot itself, apart from the human effort put into making and breaking it. A great site.

This is a very impressive stone, it stands on a knoll with views over the coast but inland it is surrounded on all sides by hills and mountains.

Clearly visible from the road as you drive down the hill into the harbour, it was surely a beacon for ancient mariners, given the sheer number of ancient remains in the area it possibly marks one of the busiest places for trade and rest along the coast.

Its worth knowing before visiting that you will be greeted on arrival by the people who own the land and for a €2 coin you will be given the nod and a badly printed sheet of info taken directly from the stonepages website.

This is a worrying trend in the locality, some landowners leave a donation box for you to exchange courtesies with a small contribution and there are few places that aren’t worth parting with a euro or two to visit if your getting signageand a decent trackway. Charging people up front though does leave you feeling ripped off when there is no service or added value being offered to the traveller.

It stands 5.3m tall and though it is clearly quite ancient it looks surprisingly modern, its shape and colour brings to mind the stones of Callanish and its weather beaten location with fine views of the harbour takes some beating.

The ogham insciption is fairly worn and very high up on the stone, it was also in the shade on my visit so did not come out in any photographs.

This is a beautiful circle in a wonderful location. It didn’t really stand out when I browsed through TME but when I looked up some pics on Megalithomania.com I knew this would be near the top of the list for the next tour of Cork/Kerry.

I took the words of those who were here previously seriously and left myself plenty of time to get here. It’s not incredibly far in terms of distance but it is a bit of a hairy journey. I could find no trace of any of the signs and walkways mentioned in TME and ended up relying on the sometimes dodgy combination of GPS and ‘as the crow flies’ navigation. I’m pretty sure I picked the most difficult route to get here, when I got to the circle I passed one of the Beara Way markers but looking back it seemed this track would lead me past the herd of crazy eyed bulls that loitered around the gate to the lane that would make the most direct route.
After getting mugged for €2 at both Ballycrovane and Shronebirrane I would not have been one bit surprised if the cows wanted a feckin toll to cross as well.

After falling through two hedges and over and under countless barbed wire fences, slipping into drainage trenches and getting torn on thorns I finally spotted the portal stone framed under a lovely tree. The sun was really scorching the ground when I finally sat and caught my breath against one of the old stones.

This circle is far better than in the photos, although overgrown it is wonderfully complete and the stones are perfectly chosen. It’s location is probably only second to Uragh, you can survey for miles withoug seeing a single bungalow and it takes no effort to cast your mind back to when these craggy charmers were dragged to this spot.

The only thing that detracted from this place was some clever person leaving a sheep skull and a slab of stone with a hand perfectly painted in sparkly pink nail varnish on the boulder burial...

Every once in a while you come across a place that puts your head in a spin and in all the confusion you just want to laugh. This is a very odd place. Very, very odd. After seeing a handful of pics in a picture library of a stone circle with some unusual looking arrangements around it, there was nothing else to be done only track this strange place down and see it for myself.

First of all it was only discovered when the site was being cleared to lay down gardens after the land had been purchased for development into a park. It has since been cleaned up and restored to an unknown extent. It now forms part of a walking trail around Millstreet Country Park, situated below and in sight of Knocknakilla Hill and its more famous stone circles.

The park has a visitor centre, restaurant, gardens, water courses complete with jumping salmon, wandering deer and this magnificent Bronze Age site.
When you first see it after a 15 minute walk from the visitor centre, the first thing that springs to mind is how well preserved the medium sized circle with its sub-two foot stones is. Then you cant help wondering about the intriguing arrangements of stones surrounding it. Then you read the information board and find out that the ‘circle’ is in fact that curious arrangement of slabs that looks like it cant decide whether its a ruined portal or wedge tomb. When complete this must have looked more like a five stone rectangle. The portals are set radially and the remaining side stone, its cropped opposite partner and the axial form a neat box.
The stone still standing (barely) are over almost four foot tall and a pile of left overs lie to one side.

The radial circle is an almost perfect circle that could have been transplanted from Beaghmore in Tyrone, it is similar in size to the smaller circles there but obviously the radial setting of the stones make this pretty unique. Near the center is a fallen stone about three foot long. To the North West is a fallen three stone row, to the south west of this row are two more prostrate long stones. To the south east of the circle is a five foot outlier almost fallen into the circle itself. Other stones jut out of the grass aroundabout.

This is a fascinating place, full of oddities and mysteries (not least why its still almost unknown). The park can easily fill a full day on its own but you could spend most of it here at this strange complex.

The familiar sight of Haroldstown sprouting up from lush green grass is no more... The field has been ploughed to within an inch of the dolmen, a bit of a shock to see it when coming around the bend. I really hope it will be a cereal crop and not vegetables, that would be a very ill-fitting setting for this magnificent sculpture. The whole field has been cleared right down to the river edge and all the interesting boulders spread around the bank are now piled unceremoniously in a heap. It looked as depressing as the weather.

Although the trees around the circle have not yet been cleared, the circle itself is completly clear and very easy to make out now. The area in the middle has been flattened, seems like a large group of people have been here recently and I also saw a small pile of loose stones beside the circle. These apparently are being used to fill in the gaps and make the circle ‘complete’ for whatever purpose and shallow sockets can be seen in the gaps of the circle.

Its still extremely difficult to photograph!