A short introduction to ‘Standing Stones’

extracted from the Appletree Press title Ireland's Ancient Stones by Kenneth McNally.

The visitor to any of the two hundred or so stone circles known in Ireland, whether large imposing monuments like The Lios at Lough Gur in Co. Limerick, or the diminutive five-stone rings found in Co. Kerry, can scarcely fail to wonder about their cryptic purpose. Theories abound, from pragmatic reasoning that they were places of assembly and law-making, to extravagant flights of fancy involving alien spacecraft. It has also been claimed that they served as astronomical observatories where druidic priests predicted lunar eclipses and other celestial phenomena. To see these structures as purpose-built observatories in a scientific sense is perhaps stretching credulity, but it is certainly possible that they had a more practical function as calendar stones, enabling farming communities to map the passage of the seasons. The arrangement of the stones themselves and the orientation of certain prominent ones suggest such a use, and in addition would not be inconsistent with the concept of the stone circle as a sanctuary where people whose lives were profoundly linked to the seasons and climate performed rites to ensure a fruitful harvest.
      By definition, a stone circle is an arrangement of upright stones forming an open ring whose purpose was essentially ritual. Of the recorded sites two main concentrations are identified: in south-west Munster and mid-Ulster, the latter centred in the Sperrin Mountains region of Co. Tyrone. Here on the upland hill-slopes are numerous rings of low stones or boulders, occurring in proximity as inter-related groups, but for all that inconspicuous among the monotones of heathery moorland. Stone circles are also found in the adjoining counties of Fermanagh and Londonderry and here too the stones tend to be of small size, generally no more than 2-3 feet in height. Some of the Ulster circles have associated stone rows, called ‘alignments’, and some stand near cairns or other burial monuments. All these features are present at Beaghmore, a remarkable Bronze Age ceremonial site uncovered in Co. Tyrone in the 1940s.
      A clue to the possible uses of stone circles might be sought in folklore. The seven stones of Lissyviggeen are explained in an old legend as the children of two giants (represented by a pair of tall outliers), all of whom were turned to stone as they danced. The theme of ossified dancers recurs in connection with other stone circles, both in Ireland and Britain, and since folklore often preserves elements of fact, one might conclude that dancing in celebration of pastoral festivals figured in the rites practised at these monuments, though this can only be part of the answer. In the end the mystery remains, tantalisingly locked forever in the stones themselves and in the lost culture of the people who built them.
      Many pre-existing standing stones were made acceptable to the Christian religion by carving simple crosses on them. From such tentative beginnings the early cross-slabs evolved, and ultimately the tall freestanding High Crosses which represent the supreme artistic achievement of the Celtic Church. They may seem an unlikely progeny of the pagan cult of great stones, but as Estyn Evans concluded, ‘In a sense the High Crosses are the culminating expression of a reverence for the megalithic in the Atlantic zone of the British Isles’.
      Over the centuries ancient sites acquired names and associations to fit the timeframe of legends and folklore, and many of the old sacred locations were again venerated, now as places of pilgrimage whose patterns and festive gatherings were ostensibly Christian, but whose origins lay in a shadowy pagan past.

Extracted from the Appletree Press title Ireland's Ancient Stones - A Megalithic Heritage by Kenneth McNally, published by Appletree Press.