Ballynoe, county Down
A very large circle of over 50 stones up to 1.8 metres high (though mostly smaller) encloses a space about 35 metres across - built as a counterpart to the beautiful circle at
Swinside
in Cumbria.
In the E half of the circle is a long low mound which contained large kists at the E and W ends. This mound obliterated two shortlived cairns built after the circle was constructed, in what Aubrey Burl describes as
"prehistoric bigotry and vandalism [which] ruined this magnificent monument."
Three pairs of stones stand outside the circle at varying distances, the nearest pair at the W side forming a kind of entrance 2.1 metres wide. Many of the stones in this circle were originally shoulder to shoulder, as at Lough Gur, at Swinside
in Cumbria, and La Menec in Brittany.
The four outliers (one of which is in the foreground of this photograph) have no significance that is yet evident.
A portalled entrance at the W with stones 2.1 metres apart (on the right of the picture) is aligned on the rising and setting sun half-way between midwinter and midsummer (around March 21st); and the setting sun at winter solstice seems to slide down between the Mountains of Mourne on the right (obscured in this photograph by cloud).
J 481 404 - Sheet 21
Nearest town: Downpatrick
Click on the picture for another view.
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