Lough Gur Standing Stone
Datedc. 1010–770 BCE
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
What the sources say
Lough Gur Standing Stone is a menhir in County Limerick, Grange, Ireland. Its entries are Wikidata item Q116819925; the position in the catalogue is 52.5171° N, 8.5396° W.
Built from structured records, not from an articleSources and licences
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
The full article
About Lough Gur Standing Stone
This kind of monument hereSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Ireland is rich in menhirs, standing stones that are usually located in farmers' fields and heavily worn by the weather and by livestock. Menhirs are found across Europe, Africa and Asia, with a concentration in Western Europe, notably in Ireland, Great Britain and Brittany. Theories concerning their purpose remain speculative, with hypotheses including rituals, territorial markers and elements of an ideological system. Standing stones are usually difficult to date, because they were set up in many different periods of prehistory. The full article, “Irish standing stones”, follows below under About this kind of monument.
DatingSources for this section
Sources for this section
The recorded date for this site is 1010 BCE to 770 BCE, established by radiocarbon dating. The record notes: 12 radiocarbon dates in the p3k14c database (Bird et al. 2022, Scientific Data 9:27 (p3k14c radiocarbon database)) between 1760 and 4740 BP; the range shown is the middle half of the measurements; uncalibrated ages, shown as calendar years with the conventional BP + 1950 conversion.
Published age claims for this site include 1010 BCE to 770 BCE (radiocarbon dating). The mainstream range is 1010 BCE to 770 BCE.
Landscape and neighbours
Counting outward from Lough Gur Standing Stone, there are 1 catalogued site within 1 km, 2 within 5 km and 2 within 10 km, and none of them is of the same kind. It is one of 1 menhir records among the 3 sites catalogued in County Limerick, Ireland.
Nearest to it are Grange stone circle (0.4 km south-west, stone circle); Lough Gur Tomb (1.1 km south-east, megalithic tomb); Longstone Rath (16.4 km east, megalithic mound); Duntryleague (19.2 km south-east, passage tomb). The catalogue is assembled from open records and is not complete, so unrecorded monuments may lie closer.
Records and protectionSources for this section
Sources for this section
Wikidata lists the site with the heritage status national monument of Ireland. The open records for it are Wikidata (Q116819925), where corrections and further identifiers can be added. Access varies from open common land to private fields; check local access rules, ask where needed, and take care not to damage the monument.
How this page was madeSources for this section
Sources for this section
Nothing on this page was written by an AI model: it is assembled by program from Wikidata (CC0), the heritage register named above and the regional article “Irish standing stones”, written for the Atlas from the Wikipedia articles it cites (CC BY-SA 4.0), with distances and counts calculated from the catalogue coordinates.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Irish standing stones
Ireland is rich in menhirs, standing stones that are usually located in farmers' fields and heavily worn by the weather and by livestock. Menhirs are found across Europe, Africa and Asia, with a concentration in Western Europe, notably in Ireland, Great Britain and Brittany. Theories concerning their purpose remain speculative, with hypotheses including rituals, territorial markers and elements of an ideological system. Standing stones are usually difficult to date, because they were set up in many different periods of prehistory.
One Irish stone is well dated by its art. The Turoe Stone, a 1.2-metre granite boulder in the village of Bullaun, County Galway, probably dates to about 100 BCE to 100 CE. The top half is covered with a continuous abstract curvilinear design in the La Tène Celtic style, similar to the Castlestrange Stone in County Roscommon. It is National Monument number 327. For centuries the stone was a curiosity at a lios, a "fairy fort", some 3 kilometres away, before it was moved to Turoe Farm; in 2025 it was moved temporarily for conservation. The "fairy fort" name is a folk tradition.
Ogham, the early medieval alphabet of Ireland, was cut on the edges of some standing stones. In Ireland it is traditional to carry a stone up from the bottom of a hill and add it to the cairn at the top.
The Atlas treats isolated Irish stones as undated unless there is excavation or art to show their age.
When visiting, look at the surface for carving.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Menhir, Wikipedia: Turoe Stone, Wikipedia: List of menhirs, Wikipedia: Ogham · CC BY-SA 4.0
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
1010–770 BCEHow this date was established: Radiocarbon dating12 radiocarbon dates in the p3k14c database (Bird et al. 2022, Scientific Data 9:27 (p3k14c radiocarbon database)) between 1760 and 4740 BP; the range shown is the middle half of the measurements; uncalibrated ages, shown as calendar years with the conventional BP + 1950 conversion.Source for this date
Where it stands
Ireland
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 52°31′02″ N, 8°32′23″ WFor a GPS or map app: 52.51710, -8.53961
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
Grange stone circle3300–2500 BCE- Megalithic tombLough Gur Tomb3750–2900 BCE
Longstone Rath3700–2900 BCE
Duntryleague3400–2900 BCE
Shrough Passage Tomb3400–2900 BCE- MegalithSteinreihe von Lackanagoneeny3300–2900 BCE
- Wedge tombWedge Tomb von Ballinphunta2500–2000 BCE
- DolmenPassage Tomb von Shrough4000–3000 BCE
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q116819925wikidata.org
- 02Source for this datep3k14c.org
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
This page is assembled from open records (Wikidata, CC0; OpenStreetMap, ODbL) and a tradition article paraphrasing Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). No article exists for this site, and nothing here is written by a model.
- Wikidata Q116819925CC0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- p3k14c.org