stone circles ireland

Situated at a height of 570 feet above sea level and 3 miles inland from Ross Carbery, rush-stifled Reanascreena is a little known megalithic ring of twelve uprights and an axial stone. It is surrounded by a 12-feet wide fosse with an external earthen bank, a rare feature which suggests close cultural links with the henge monuments. A comparable but smaller embanked stone circle is at Glentane East in the same country.

When the Reanascreena site was scientifically examined in the...

Regarded as the exemplar of the West Cork stone circles, Drombeg, alias 'The Druid's Ring,' is a well preserved, clearly signposted and frequently visited monument. Its diameter of 30 feet is typical of several stone circles in the Ross Carbery district, all situated within a few miles of the coast.

The circle is of the so-called recumbent type, with an axis running north-east to south-west, as with many of these monuments, providing an alignment on the mid-winter sunset. Of its seven...

Five stones forming a miniature stone circle, two standing stones and the remains of another circle with small stones.
From the Hill-top where it is sited, there is a good view of Bantry Bay....

Four miles south of Belfast in the townland of Ballynahatty, on a plateau overlooking the River Lagan, is the largest prehistoric ritual enclosure in Ireland. A circular earthwork up to 12 feet high surrounds an open space nearly 600 feet in diameter and some 7 acres in area. Five 'entrance' gaps, not all of which are presumed to be original, give access to the interior of the ring, and a few lone trees break the skyline along the rim of the bank. The ground inside the enclosure is somewhat h...

This Drumskinny complex may have been built in the second millennium B.C., but the letters MOF on some of the stones are not an indication of the existence of writing at the time, but the initials of the Ministry of Finance which supplied them in places where the excavator found evidence for the former presence of stones which have disappeared....

A hauntingly esoteric site on a wooded hill in Furness estate, 3 miles east-north-east of Naas and 1 mile south-east of Johnstown. Though usually described as a rath, this is more properly interpreted as a ritual enclosure in the henge tradition. It consists of a circular earthwork nearly 200 feet in diameter, on top of and inside which are a number of mature hawthorn and ash trees. The bank, up to 9 feet high and cut by gaps on the east and west, is encircled by a fosse dug to a depth of 5 f...

A much mutilated but nonetheless impressive monument - one of only two stone circles recorded from Co. Donegal - situated on bleak Mass hill in the townland of Glack-Na-Drumman, a little over a mile from Culdaff village. Its ruinous state is largely the result of land clearance in the nineteenth century, when a number of its stones were overthrown and buried on the site. Either the operation proved unexpectedly troublesome, or superstition gained the upper hand, for the work was abandoned, lea...

The name of this solitary hill 2 miles south of Raphoe recalls the Celtic springtime festival of Beltane (the ancient equivalent of May Day), traditionally associated with the lighting of hill-top fires to regenerate the sun. The wreckage of great stones on this well chosen site belongs to an earlier period than the Celtic Iron Age. As it stands, it poses problems of classification. Part stone circle, part mound, it has suffered at the hands of despoilers and must look very different fro...

In the parish of Abbeylara there are two well preserved remains of stone circles. There are also in this area surviving traces of what appear to be megalithic burials. There is no doubt of the antiquity of these stone circles and of their importance as archaelogical remains of the Bronze Age period of our history. They stand as memorials to those who recognised the sun as the centre of the universe, the source of all life....

Hugh stones of a Neolithic passage tomb inscribed with fascinating designs of early art. Superb view....