Stone Circles — Grange (smallcounty By.)

National monument No. 247. Situated in grassland on top of low rise of ground 350m W of Lough Gur and surrounded by a cluster of prehistoric monuments. Two stone circles (LI032-005-/006----) in adjoining field to N, a trackway running NW-SE known as Cladh na Leac (LI032-010001-) 210m to E, site of standing stone known as Cloch á Bhíle (LI032-007----) 60m to SSE, site of Giant's Grave (LI032-010003-) possibly a megalithic structure 245m to SSE, site of a possible megalithic tomb/portal tomb (LI032-004002-) immediately to WSW, a trapezoidal setting of stones (LI032-002----) annotated as a 'Stone Avenue' which may be remains of a court tomb (Cleary 2015, 51) standing beside an embanked stone circle (LI032-003---) 120m to WNW. Embanked stone circle consisting of a slightly raised near perfect circular-shaped area (int. diam. 45.7m) defined by 113 contiguous orthostats (max. H 4m) serving as internal facing for a wide flat-topped earth and stone bank (Wth 9m; H 1-2m) with cobbled entrance gap (Wth 1m) at E flanked by tall orthostats ( H 2-2.2m), one of which (LI032-004003-) is decorated with passage-tomb style art recently identified by Ken Williams. The entrance to the circle is marked by the tallest stones and these are mirrored on the opposite side, creating an alignment on the midsummer moon (June 24) (Halpin and Newman 2006, 415). Facing the two entrance stone at WSW are two tall orthostats with tops sloping down to each forming a V-shaped notch. It has been suggested that the stones were aligned upon the early November sunset, the festival of Samhain (8 November) (Windle 1912, 287; Burl 1995, 238). The heaviest of the stones, a very large cube known as 'Rannach Croim Duibh' meaning 'the prominent black stone', weighing over twenty tons, was set at the NE towards the midsummer sunrise (ibid.). The stone circle was restored around the 1870's and new stones appear to have been erected over the decades, creating the 113 that are visible today (Cleary 2015, 52). In 1827 the stone circle was described as follows - measuring one 'hundred and thirty feet [39.6m] across. Only forty-three stones of various dimensions remain forming a perfect circle; some of them are very small, while one in the north-east part of the circle is seven feet and a half [2.3m] high by five [1.5m] in breadth ; nearly opposite to it stands another very little smaller. Many of the intermediate stones have been removed, and a part of the north side of the circumference has been much disturbed by a ditch lately made close to it. The whole of this southern circle is surrounded by a mound about fifteen feet [4.5m] broad and about four feet [1.2m] high, which skirts along the outside edge of the stones, enclosing the area within them as a pit of three or four feet [0.9-1.2m] deep' (Beaufort 1828, 139). Windle (1912, 288–91) recorded the existence of 113 orthostats forming the inner ring and also recorded that the entrance passage was discovered by ‘some men digging for treasure’ (1912, 287). The site, titled by Ó Riordáin, as the 'Great Stone Circle (B) was excavated in 1939, who found the outlines of up to five shallow, annular trenches in the interior. Ó Ríordáin (1951, 41–2) was of the opinion that most of the stones were original and recorded 113, of which six numbered stones (72, 77–79, 86 and 94) were indicated as modern insertions and 107 as original in the circle. He suggested that the entrance was only cleared of overgrowth and collapsed material and that there was ‘no indication of the fill having been disturbed’ (Ó Ríordáin 1951,48). Ó Ríordáin found that the bases of some of the circle stones were set in sockets, while other stones were standing on the old ground surface, supported by packing stones and gravel (Ó Ríordáin 1951, 45–6). Lithic finds from Ó Ríordáin’s 1939 excavation included about 400 struck stone artefacts, of which the majority were flint but which included about twenty chert fragments (Cleary 2015, 55). One barbed-and-tanged arrowhead can be dated to the Beaker period use of the site. A felsite stone axehead was recovered from the old ground surface, an axehead fragment was found at a hearth site under the bank, and a second axehead fragment was found in the gravel packing of one of the circle stones (ibid.). Beaker and Food Vessel pottery was recovered from depths of 0.15–0.28m below the modern surface but was recorded under the introduced layer and around the bases of the circle stones (ibid.). The available ceramic archive and the published report (Ó Ríordáin 1951, 64) present contradictory evidence, and show that Beaker pottery was not recovered from the old ground surface under the bank or from the intermediary turf lines within the bank. Roche (2004, 115) put forward a late Bronze Age construction date for Circle B based on her identification of the flat-based pottery recovered from a pre-bank turf horizon and the turf layers within the bank as late Bronze Age. She proposed that all other ceramic types (Neolithic, Beaker and Food Vessel pottery) represent pre-construction activity on the site and assumed that the earlier ceramics (Class I, Beaker and Food Vessel), which comprise the bulk of the ceramic assemblage, were residual from an earlier phase of site use. Excavation undertaken by Rose Cleary in 2012 attempted to establish the construction date of the earthen bank that encloses the stone circle. A single cutting, 8m (east/west) by 3.5m (north/south), was excavated through the bank in the SE quadrant. A narrower cutting, 0.5m wide (north/south) by 1.2m long (east/west), extended from the north-west corner of the trench to the back of stone 29. Her review of antiquarian accounts suggests that the site was remodelled in the late nineteenth century, when soil was added to the bank, the interior was levelled up and the circle stones were straightened. Three samples from the 2012 excavations and three from residues on pottery excavated by Ó Ríordáin in 1939 returned radiocarbon dates that range from 3020 to 2574 cal. BC (Cleary 2015, 51). The radiocarbon dates from the present study, including two on animal bone, one on ash charcoal from the 2012 excavation and on residues on pottery (1939 excavation) from the old ground surface and the intra-bank turf line, provide a time-frame for bank construction in the period 3020–2574 cal. BC. In addition to the radiocarbon evidence, the absence of Beaker pottery from under or in the bank also strongly suggests that the bank was in place prior to the use of Beaker ceramics. Roche’s (2004) revised late Bronze Age dating of Grange Stone Circle (B) can now, therefore, be dismissed (Cleary 2015. 65). Cleary (2015, 65-6) suggests the following phases of activity at Grange which may have seen activity as early as the mid-fourth millennium BC when the site use may have been intermittent and temporary. The next phase of use was the construction of the embankment. Radiocarbon and ceramic evidence presented here suggests that the construction phase of the embanked enclosure is within the date range 3020–2574 cal. BC, and further refinement may place construction near the beginning of the third millennium at 2950–2850 BC. The monument was subsequently used in the Beaker period. The 1939 Grange excavation also produced a number of Food Vessels (Ó Ríordáin 1951, 58), suggesting that activity at the site continued into the early Bronze Age. Ó Ríordáin’s excavation uncovered ‘five trenched enclosures’ (1951, 72) within Circle B which appear to be ring ditches without central mounds. These ring-ditches post-date the surface that was used by the builders of the site (Grooved Ware phase) and the Beaker-using people who subsequently used the site or may indeed have added the inner stone circle. The ring-ditches were subsequently covered by the nineteenth-century introduced infill layer (Cleary 2015, 66). This monument is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 201