Megalithic Mumblings

occasional random thoughts, diary entries and anything else I deem worthy of inclusion, such as accounts of my erstwhile forays amongst the ancient sites of Britain. Several of the posts here first appeared on the Modern Antiquarian or Heritage Action web sites.

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Saturday, July 05, 2003

Homeward Bound

We had to leave the cottage by 10am, and our ferry from Rosslare wasn't leaving till 10:15pm. Allowing for feeding and check-in time, that gave us nearly 10 hours to travel across the south of Ireland, seeing as many sites as possible on the way!

Just down the road from the cottage, a stone was marked on the map at Tullig crossroads. We'd failed to locate this all week, but it looks as if the stone has been moved to the garden of a new property, currently up for sale. The garden has three large stones, but Mikki felt that only one was 'genuine and full of energy'. And so we were on our way…

We were now working solely off the maps, and picking sites on the way – I'd circled several of interest on the route when planning last night. First up was just south of Bandon, at Corravreeda, a majestic looking stone, with a slight lean. Next was marked 'standing stones' at Parkaghadallaun.

Marked as 'standing stones' on the OSI map, I'd expected to find a pair here. What I actually found was a three stone row. Two of the stones are similar in size, and about 5 metres apart. The third is much smaller and about 25 metres to the NE of the other two, but in line with them. The middle stone had a small boulder placed atop it. I didn't enter the field due to the presence of cows nearby.

Leaving County Cork behind, we continued on the N25 toward Dungarvan, stopping briefly for lunch in Youghal, a pleasant enough seaside town. A few miles SW from Dungarvan, we spotted the Boherboy stone from the main road. It looks to be around 5 feet tall. Once again, cows in the field prevented a closer look. Moving slightly south, was an interesting stone at Kilcolman, and another at Ballyvoyle to the east of Dungarvan.

Our next few scheduled stops were tombs, starting at the Ballynageeragh dolmen, which is sponsored by the local school! The ruined tomb at Dunhill was next, closely followed by that at Matthewstown. The Ballymote stone followed, but I didn't get close, due to my, by now, pathological fear of ruminants.

The Gaulstown dolmen reminded me distinctly of Carreg Coetan Arthur, but with an additional concrete base, and in a very different setting. I had to fight my way through shoulder high ferns and bracken to get to the stones, although the ground immediately surrounding the stones had been cleared.

There's a sign screwed to a tree nearby that suggests the huge capstone is only supported by two of the uprights, but I saw at least three in contact during my visit.The pathway to the dolmen was incredibly overgrown, but the area immediately around the dolmen was clear.

We entered Wexford County still with three hours to spare, and a quick glance at the map showed a few promising sites near to the harbour, so off we went. The Ballyboher stone had previously been visited by Fourwinds, but we had real difficulty in spotting the stone, despite its size. An impenetrable hedgerow some 9 feet high did all it could to bar our way. I did eventually find a gate to the field and managed to spot the stone in a far corner. It really is a large stone.

We then carried on down to Lady Island and the Buncarrick stone in the graveyard. I also took the opportunity to follow a sign to 'Our Lady's Holy Well', (the only one of the holiday I actually visited) which turned out to sit in the middle of a golf course!

Our final call was to continue down the road to Castletown and the phallic stone there, which was in the middle of a field of crops, before turning and heading for the ferry.

We managed to board the ferry early and grabbed a cabin so we could get some much needed rest. Being an overnight ferry, it was only half full, despite the time of year, and we made good time, docking in Fishguard 30 minutes ahead of schedule. A tiring drive through the night with a brief stop for breakfast saw us arrive home at 6:30am.

I did try to persuade Mikki to let me see the sun rise at Avebury, but she threatened GBH if I even tried to turn off the motorway!

So our holiday adventure was over. Our next planned break is a return trip to Cornwall. There's lots I haven't seen there yet, plus some old friends I'd like to see again.

Three words to sum up Ireland on this trip? Foxgloves, Cows and Potholes! All three were in abundance everywhere we went. And it's very easy to quickly run out of superlatives when describing the scenery. Everywhere you look is simply breathtaking in its beauty.

As for the stones, they are everywhere you look! Many of them are inaccessible, and I'm not familiar enough with the law in Ireland to know which I could approach and which I couldn't, so I tended to err on the side of caution. The agriculture of the country tends to high, deep hedgerows which makes sighting the stones difficult. Those that aren't in the agricultural areas are in inhospitable regions, up mountains, in peat bogs etc. So if you go there, be prepared for some serious off-road terrain.

The roads themselves are scary – much worse condition than English roads once you get off the main drags. Irish drivers are very courteous in the main, but seem to have no concept of safe speeds or speed limits, despite an ongoing road safety campaign.