County: Cork Site name: CARRIGAGULLA
Sites and Monuments Record No.: CO049-023---- Licence number: 02E1801
Author: Niamh O’Callaghan, for Eachtra Archaeological Projects
Site type: Stone Row
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 538353m, N 583021m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.995800, -8.897710
A limited rescue excavation (commissioned by Dúchas) was undertaken at the site of a stone row in the townland of Carrigagulla, Macroom, Co. Cork. The monument is located on a low rise east of Carrigagulla Hill in what is now a state-planted forest c. 1km west of Annagannihy crossroads. It is in a remote location of the Boggeragh Mountains c. 12km south-east of Millstreet and 11km north-west of Macroom.
The stone row comprises three stones that range in increasing height and size from west to east and are thought to be composed of grey/green sandstones. The third and largest stone lies prostrate at an acute angle from the extant uprights c. 2m to the east. During recent forestry harvesting in the area, in an attempt to protect the fallen stone, it was moved by machine and, ironically, it was dropped and damaged in the process. The stone (4.2m long and c. 0.6m2 in profile) fell on a tree stump causing a large section, 1.26m long by 0.62m wide and 0.06m thick, to shear off along a natural fissure.
The objective of the excavation was to locate the original socket where the fallen stone had once stood, so that a strategy for its re-erection could be formulated.
A full EDM survey was undertaken in the area of the monument.
Two trenches were opened to the east of the two in situ stones, but no archaeological remains of the original socket were found; no ex situ stones—i.e. possible packing stones—were located either. Also, as the fallen stone is a massive regular block, a very large deep socket would have been required to keep it upright and no part of a socket was found.
A brief study of stone rows in the mid-Cork region was carried out. Out of a total of 28 monuments, measurements were available for the distances between the first three stones for 24 of these recorded monuments. It was found that, on average, the distance between the first and second stone was 1.1m, while the distance between the second and third stone was 1.4m. With this in mind, and considering that an excavation of 4m was undertaken immediately east of the two remaining uprights, it is the author’s opinion that the fallen stone was not a component of the eastern limits of the stone row as originally thought.
A number of hypotheses have been put forward as to why the socket was not located:
• The fallen stone may never have formed part of the extant monument and was positioned there in the recent past, possibly when the forest planting first commenced.
• The fallen stone may have comprised a single outlying standing stone, chronologically and spatially related to the two extant stones that would themselves be classified as a stone pair. This is a distinct possibility and would essentially mean that the fallen stone comprised an element of a more complex Bronze Age monument.
• The fallen stone was part of the stone row, but it was located immediately to the west of the current smallest stone of the monument. Subsequently, the stone would have been dragged to its current location. There is a possibility that the fallen stone once stood on the west side of the row. It was presumed that, because it has lain for some time on the east side, it actually fell there originally. As that scenario has now been proved negative, the possibility that the stone once stood on the west side must be considered.
3 Canal Place, Tralee, Co. Kerry
