What is recorded here

False man, the locals called it, because the upright limestone slab still resembles a bent human body on the shelf above both valleys. It stands two metres tall inside an old field wall, its pointed top and rounded edges unchanged since people first read a shape in the rock. The real wonder is that it gave birth to a name, and the name has kept the shape alive.

On a shelf covered by dense undergrowth, overlooking the Poulacarran and Eanty valleys from SW to NE; the land slopes steeply c. 38m to NW. Noted by Westropp (1898, 360) as a ‘fantastic rock, somewhat resembling a human figure’, locally called Farbrega (fear bréagach; ‘false man’). An upright limestone slab (H 2m; Wth 0.8m; T 0.6m) with a rounded, pointed top and well-rounded edges, oriented N-S. Its base may be set into a gryke. It is integrated into a NW-SE drystone field wall. A cashel (CL009-083----) lies c. 41m to the SSE. Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Conn Herriott Date of upload: 12 April 2022

Probably dating to the Late Neolithic or Bronze Age, this standing stone may have had ritual or territorial significance, possibly linked to landscape orientation or local folklore given its prominent and somewhat human-like form.

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