What is recorded here

One decorated stone from near Loughcrew, County Meath, still exists though its exact discovery point has blurred into a fence or a forgotten field. E. C. Rotherham recovered it in the late 1800s and gave it to the National Museum of Ireland, where its cup-mark, gapped rings and radial line remain visible. The uncertainty about its origin does not diminish the clarity of the marking; it preserves the moment when an ordinary boundary stone was recognised as a work of human attention.

A decorated stone was recovered in the late 1800s by E. C. Rotherham who presented it to the National Museum of Ireland (K. S. CC 22). Coffey (1897, 37) says that it had been ‘built into a field fence in the neighbourhood of Loughcrew’, although it may be from Ballinvally townland (Eogan 2011, 7, No. 4). It is described (Shee 1972, 226-8) as decorated on one side (max. dims 0.8m x c. 0.55m) with a large cup-mark (diam. 0.1m) surrounded by four concentric rings all gapped at the same point for a radial line. This is surrounded by smaller, less well-made motifs, the clearest of which is a cup-mark and double ring with a possible radial line pointing to a lozenge, beyond which is a smaller double-ring attached to the main motif. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 3 March, 2017 Amended: 14 October 2025

A decorated standing stone, likely from the Late Neolithic or Bronze Age, repurposed into a field fence in historic times; its carvings may have held ritual or territorial significance.

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