Drombeg

Stone Circle, Co. Cork

Photo � Celia Haddon

OS Map: D89 Cork OS Map Key amazon.co.uk bookshop.co.uk (both 20% off) countrybookshop.co.uk (5% off, free UK P&P OS Map ref: W247352 Nearest town: Skibbereen Townland: Drombeg

Thirteen out of the original 17 stones of this impressive circle survive, the most westerly of which is the fine axial, which has 2 egg-shaped cup-marks, one with a surrounding ring. The 2 portal stones' (1.8m high) are as usual on the NE side. Radiocarbon tests on the cremated burial found in the centre of the circle nave a date between 150 BC and 130 AD, though the circle itself is almost certainly Bronze Age. I

Just over 30m to the W are the remains of 2 conjoined round huts, the larger of which had a timber roof supported by a central post. The smaller hut had a cooking-oven on its E side. From the huts a causeway leads to a cooking-place containing a hearth, a well, and a trough in which water was boiled by dropping in hot stones - almost 350 litres could be boiled within 15 minutes of the stones being dropped in. The presence of the stone circle, huts, and cooking-place suggests that annual or seasonal gatherings took place at a sacred site down to the 5th century AD, the dating obtained for the cooking- place.

The stone circles of Bohonagh and Reanascreena South are not far away.

Access: 2.4 km (1 � ml) E of Glandore, 250 m down a path to the E of a byroad. Signposted (SN 381). One of the few stone circles in County Cork with proper signposts all the way, off the Glandor and Clonakilty Rd, it is a short walk from the sign posts with a proper car park. See above for map links

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