Here lie the bones of a monster. The entry in the Archaeological Inventory, following O’Nualláin, describes a stone pair – two slabs of mismatched height, the taller over two metres – but doesn’t mention the brooding block swaddled in whitethorn, 20 metres to the east.(1,2) Or the others fallen south from the body of the fence. While these latter may be coincidental the eastern megalith, tall, thick and imposing, sits the line of the recorded pair in position and wide-face orientation.
Only Aubrey Burl, with a politely suggestive question mark after the ‘2 st st’ in his gazetteer, gives a published hint of the giant that must have stretched here.(3)
‘Sleep.
Do not fear the roaming.
eye.
Sleep.‘
Federico Garcia Lorca, from ‘Berceuse for a Sleeping Mirror’.
Permission to visit may be obtained from the farmhouse immediately south, on the left hand side of the road.
(1) Archaeological Inventory of Cork, Volume 1, West Cork, 1992, no.196; 42
(2) O’Nualláin, PRIA 88 C, 1988, no.133; 247
(3) Burl, ‘From Carnac to Callanish: The Prehistoric Stone Rows and Avenues of Britain, Ireland and Brittany’, 1993; 261.