Qualla: Kealkill stone circle

Kealkill stone circle: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hywel Williams, CC BY-SA 2.0. When archaeologists excavated this hillside ring in 1938, they got the orientation wrong. They thought the large stone on the north side of the circle was the axial one - the recumbent slab that anchored the whole geometry. It made sense at the time. The big stone looked like it should matter most. But Cork-Kerry circles point southwest, toward midwinter sunset, and forty-six years later, in 1984, the archaeologist Sean O Nuallain re-examined Kealkill and decided that the small, almost insignificant stone slab to the southwest was actually the axial. The big one to the north had been the loudest object in the field, but it was not the one the builders had cared about most.

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Image: Hywel Williams | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kealkill stone circle: Five Stones and Two Giants

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. Kealkill is an axial five-stone circle of the type found across counties Cork and Kerry. Five low stones form an elliptical D-shape, with the axial stone at the southwest end. The portal stones - the entrance markers, opposite the axial - are both around 1.2 metres tall but very ...

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Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kealkill stone circle: From Aberdeenshire to West Cork

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hywel Williams, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1909, when the type was first named, these monuments were called recumbent stone circles - after the very similar rings of Aberdeenshire in Scotland, where one stone always lay lengthways at the southwest end. The Irish examples in Cork and Kerry shared that recumbent geometry...

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Image: Hywel Williams | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kealkill stone circle: What the Hillside Holds

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 4.0. The circle sits on the slopes of Maughanclea Hill at about 400 feet, overlooking Bantry Bay. On a clear day, Breeny More stone circle is visible to the southwest. The ground here would have been suitable for cultivation in the Bronze Age, though why this particular spot was chose...

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Image: CC BY-SA 4.0