Standing stone in Galboola

Galboola in County Limerick holds a one-metre limestone pillar on an east-facing slope, its edges smoothed by generations of cattle scratching and its base ringed in a shallow dish of trodden earth. The stone stands slightly narrower at the top, fissured at both ends, like a finger still pointing across the pasture. It may have marked a boundary, a burial, or a promise made before writing existed. Whatever it meant, the cows have claimed it now, polishing it into a living thing.