Tags
This Grange Stone Circle is the largest stone circle in Ireland, and measures 45 meters across. There is another, smaller stone circle not far from here, but we didn’t have time to visit it.
In total, 113 stones form the circumference of this circle.
The biggest of these stones forming the ring has a large V in the center of it. Fantastically, the sun rise on midsummer’s day is perfectly aligned with this crack, and suggests that this site held some sort of religious significance for the people who built it. This theory is further confirmed by the discovery of a post-hole in the center of the circle, purposefully broken pottery found in excevations, and the regular spacing of 12 larger stones in the circle.
The view looking through the center of the stone circle was fantastic
.
Trees indeed had grown up in the ring of rocks over quite some time. This tree gained quite a goodly size before dying. The remaining stump has been carved into a seat, overlooking a grassy pasture.
Just a few more pictures of this fascinating place! So much happened here – and people obviously expended a good deal of effort to create this stone circle using not only muscle and extensive labor to arrange the stones, but also some form of science to align it just perfectly for midsummer’s day sunrise. Today, we’re left to the efforts of historians and archeologists as we attempt to understand and reconstruct what might have happened here.
