Stone circle - embanked

The National Monuments Service's description

National monument No. 247. The levelled possible embanked stone circle with adjoining megalithic structure (LI032-003----) is located in grassland 550m W of Lough Gur with Limerick-Cork road immediately to E. According to Professor Robert Harkness (1869, 389-90) the monument was levelled some time in the early 1830s during the construction of the adjoining Limerick-Cork mail road. This levelled monument is located in an area with a large concentration of prehistoric monuments. Two standing stones (LI032-009-/010002-) lie 255m and 340m respectively to the NE, two stone circles (LI032-006----/005) lie 150m to E, a roadway depicted as 'Cladh na Leac' (LI032-010001-) running roughly N-S lies 375m to E. Grange embanked stone circle (LI032-004001-) with site of megalithic structure depicted as Dolmen (Site of) (LI032-004002-) stands 150m to SSE, a standing stone marked as 'Cloch á bhíle' stands 275m to SSE with a levelled megalithic structure (LI032-010003-) depicted as 'Giants Grave (Site of) lies 465m to SSE. Grange Castle (LI032-001002-) and Cathar Chinn Chon (LI032-001002-) stands 215m to W.
No monument is depicted at this location on the first edition Ordnance Survey [OS] 6-inch map. However on the revised 1927 edition OS map, the monument is hachured as an oval-shaped platform which is annotated by the OS as a 'Stone Circle (Site of)' with a 'Stone Avenue' (LI032-003----) immediately to SSE depicted as a small oval shaped setting of 7 orthostats.
Harbison (1970, 155) suggested that the monument may have been the remains of a megalithic tomb. However in 1869 Professor Harkness described the site as a stone circle which had been partially destroyed during the construction of the adjoining Limerick-Cork mail road. He recorded the following details about this monument: ‘A short distance N.W of these three circles (LI032-005-/006-/004001), and in a field adjoining the Limerick high-road, there are other traces of prehistoric remains. These occur in the form of a few large blocks of stone arranged in a double row (LI032-003----). They may have originally formed the western side of the large imperfect circle, having been removed from thence when the road was being made. There is also in the same field a large cup-shaped depression about 210 paces in diameter, but whether this is a natural or an artificial production there is not sufficient evidence at present to determine’ (Harkness 1869, 389-90). This cup-shaped depression may be a reference to an embanked stone circle.
In 1895 the monument was described as following; ‘About one hundred and twenty yards north-west of the chief circle [LI032004001-], at the opposite side of the main road to Limerick, there is a cup-shaped circle with a diameter of two hundred and thirty feet. Not a stone is now left in this circle, the last having been taken away about sixty years ago. There are traces of this circle having been formerly surrounded by a rath. An avenue (LI032-003----) bordered on each side with stones much sunk in the ground, of which only thirteen are now left, meets the circle at the north-east side. The avenue is about thirty feet wide, but it narrows as it approaches the circles, and right in the middle of it, near the circle, there is a stone much buried in the ground. The stones are very irregularly placed, and some have been shifted from their original positions’ (Lynch 1895, 300).
Today the outline of a roughly oval-shaped area (approx. diam. 85m N-S; 62m E-W) is visible on Digital Globe aerial photograph. The S side of this levelled earthwork was intersected by a levelled field boundary depicted on the first edition of the OS 6-inch map. The outline of this monument is clearer on earlier OSI aerial photographs which shows a linear earthwork possibly a levelled field boundary running N-S across the E quadrant of the monument. The linear earthwork appears to be contemporaneous with similar earthworks running N-S to the NE and S of the monument. These earthworks may represent a small post-medieval field system or drainage channels of post-medieval date. Cultivation ridges running N-S are visible immediately S of the monument.

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 18 May 2018

References

Harkness, R. Prof. 1869 The prehistoric antiquities of and around Lough Gur. Quarterly Journal of Science, 388-96.

Lynch, J. F. 1895 Lough Gur. Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 1, 241-258, 289-302.

Harbison, P. 1970 (Reprint 1992) Guide to the national monuments in the Republic of Ireland. Dublin. Gill and Macmillan.