We’re going on vacation next week to West Cork, in southwesternmost Ireland. I worked at a marine biological lab, Sherkin Island Marine Station, the summers after my junior and senior years in college and I spent a lot of time hitchhiking and walking around West Cork, but I haven’t been back since. Going through old journals — including some painstakingly hand-drawn maps — I found a description of a ‘solstice stone’ that I found in Slievemore, a remote part of Sherkin:

From Abbey Strand, where the boat docks, walk a mile to the crossroads. You will pass the store/post office on your left, Kinish Harbor on your right, and the Island House (on your right). At the crossroads, bear left up a small hill, with the church on your right.

After 3/4 of a mile you will be opposite Trabawn, a sandy beach. Slievemore is ahead on your left. Leave the road at a gate, where a rough track passes between two houses. This track disappears into a pasture — continue straight and up through bracken. Stay close to the stone wall (on your right) running straight up the hill. You should be going up the righthand side of a saddle. At the top, pause in a small clearing. Set in line with the stone wall is a Bronze Age solstice stone, a large flat rock with a round hole bored in it. It is exactly aligned N-S, so the hole catches sunrise on the longest day of the year.

The view here is excellent. The pond below, Lough Ordree, is used by gulls to preen their feathers. The Baltimore Beacon is also visible. On the ridge, the wind picks up considerably. The cove below is called Fourdree.

Maybe someone else pointed it out to me, or maybe I found it based on some written reference; I don’t now remember. They’re fairly common in that part of the world. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a map for this entry, but I’m hoping I can find it again, especially since we’re going to be there around the summer solstice.