What is recorded here

Two huge standing stones rose eight or nine feet tall in Cloghchurnel pasture, thirty yards apart, until a landowner rebuilt the site into a smaller tomb-like structure using boulders that once lay flat. The genuine megalths vanished or were absorbed, leaving behind a modern imitation dressed as ancient memory. What remains is not the stone the surveyors measured but a story told through stone, clever enough to deceive and cruel enough to erase.

In well-drained, slightly rolling pasture. This is the W example of two stones (see also LF007-005002-) marked on the revised edition of the OS 6-inch map (surveyed 1879) and named 'Standing stones'; the name is in not printed in Gothic script, the font used to denote antiquities. A report, dated 1944, recorded 'two huge standing stones, each 8 [2.4m] or 9 feet [2.7m] in height and standing about 30 yds. [27.4m] apart' (ITA Survey). No visible remains. The megalithic tomb-like structure that now occupies the site was erected by the landowner (SMR file 1999; Fredengren et al. 2010, 105, Pl. 3.13). It is composed of two upright slabs (H of N slab 1.05m; H of S slab 1.4m) with a 'capstone' (L 1.8m) over them. According to the landowner, all of these boulders once lay on the ground. Their dimensions suggest that it is unlikely that either of the possible standing stones were incorporated in this feature. Compiled by: Patrick F. O'Donovan Date of upload: 27 February 2012

Probably dating to the Late Neolithic or Bronze Age, the standing stone may have had ritual or territorial significance. Such stones are often associated with ceremonial practices or markers for early farming communities.

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.