Stone Circle in Co. Galway

Yesterday, I got an email from the National Monuments Service (Republic of Ireland) to confirm a stone circle I had discovered in December of 2022 and reported to them as a potential site. I discovered it in Co. Galway while mapping the Co. Roscommon task (which still needs validation, btw), but the site is just across the River Suck (that’s what it’s called on OSM; it has a different name on Google, strangely) which forms the boundary between Roscommon and Galway.

Check on OpenStreetMap

I nearly didn’t report it, because it looks so neat and regular with its 27 (thanks danieldegroot2 for being able to count, not like myself :D) stones forming a perfect circle of 18m diameter. It’s not difficult to make perfect circle, but the distance between the stones looks very regular too. Hence my doubtful subject in my email to the NMS “unlikely monument in Co. Galway, only reporting just in case”, because I suspected that the farmer whose land is on (or his forefathers) had built it. I still have a little doubt. It’s also in a flood plain which seems a strange location for a stone circle to me, but I’m no expert. The stone in the centre is a standing stone, but the ones forming the circle are “only” boulders which is not entirely unusual, as attested by the more famous Kenmare Stone Circle in Co. Kerry (website, on OSM). I presume they used boulders formed partly be the ice age and partly by the River Suck. The standing stone is not as smooth as the boulders. Unfortunately, I have no photographs, because I have not visited the site myself, but the lady from the NMS sent me two photographs.

It can’t happen often that hitherto unknown (apart from the farmer who owns the land, of course) stone circles are recorded. The NSM archaeologist also commented on the strange fact that they were not recorded on the Ordnance Survey maps. I presume (from reading some of the Ordnance Survey letters) that the 19th century Ordnance Surveyors did not actually look at every square meter of Ireland, but asked the local priest or other person of authority if they knew of anything significant in the area, and if they asked the wrong person (ignorant of suspicious of the surveyors), they just weren’t told. Now, of course, we have aerial imagery and could probably even teach AI to look for sites (but what’s the fun in that?).

Crannógs in Co. Monaghan

From Dec 19th 2023 to January 22nd 2024, I had mapped the buildings in Co. Monaghan in a private task in the task manager (report on the OSM Ireland website). I chose to create a private task, because I wanted to look for unrecorded archaeological sites as a side quests (I like my side quests; they keep me motivated). As a result, I reported 8 possible crannógs (lake dwellings, Wikipedia) to the National Monuments Service a week ago. Today, I got an email from them confirming 4. Because they responded so quickly, I presume that they also only looked at satellite imagery (maybe they have access to Lidar as well, idk) and didn’t visit the sites. Three of them are in lakes and one in a bog:

• Lough Glear (already recorded on the Ordnance Survey maps as an islet, but not identified as a crannóg before): OSM link Bing imagery 7/17/2021-7/21/2021
• Drumate Lough: OSM link Bing imagery 7/17/2021-7/21/2021
• Laurel Lough: OSM link Bing imagery 7/17/2021-7/21/2021
• Cor Bog: OSM link Bing imagery 1/29/2014-10/4/2019

I worked mostly with Bing imagery, but compared it with other aerial imagery, too, of course. I’m sorry for not posting screen shots of the aerial imagery, but I’m not quite sure what the copyright status is, when using it in the diaries. (I’ve done it before, but I don’t want to stretch my luck.)

The really cool thing for my dear reader and co-contributor is the fact that the National Monuments Service’s map is basically offline, well, they can’t add new sites at the moment, so the only map where this information is available for now is OpenStreetMap. #silverlining

If anyone likes numbers, that’s 16 crannógs I have officially discovered so far since October 2022. And one stone circle. :D

Thanks, OSM, for making that possible! It’s a joy!

EDIT: I have added a section “how to spot on aerial imagery” to the wiki which might be useful to others and contains images.