# Ballynoe stone circle

Ballynoe Stone Circle is a complex multi-phase site, meaning its use spans multiple periods of human history. It is believed to be some 5000 years old dating from the late Neolithic (around 3000 BC) into the Early Bronze Age (itself two millennia from 2500 – 500 BC). The stone circle located near the village of Ballynoe, County Down in Northern Ireland is one of around 1,300 recorded stone circles in Ireland, Britain and Brittany remaining today.

## History

Stone circles are circular arrangements of standing stones, dating from the late Neolithic era through the Early Bronze Age. Monuments were constructed from 3300 to 900 BCE. They are commonly found throughout Britain, Ireland and Brittany. In Ireland, the monuments are distributed primarily in County Cork, County Kerry and in central Ulster. Circular sites are not a unique feature of the prehistoric; henges, passage tombs, stone circles, cairns, exhumation sites like Ballynahatty, County Down and Millin Bay near Portaferry, County Down. All are circular arrangements of stones that can vary in size from some small boulders to great orthostats. In Ulster, the typical stone circle is constructed of a large number of small stones, usually 0.3 m high, and are often found at higher elevations. Stone circles are relative scarce in County Down, compared to other regions of Ulster. There are more than 1300 surviving stone circles in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany today.

## Description

The Ballynoe stone circle is located near the village of Ballynoe, County Down, in Northern Ireland. The circle measures approximately 35 m (115 ft) in diameter and includes 50 or more small, upright stones, with a maximum height of 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in). It is thought there were originally more – Aubrey Burl estimating 70 or so and it is likely the full complement would have stood shoulder to shoulder as at Grange stone circle near Lough Gur and a comparator site of Swinside in Cumbria (which is built on approximately the same latitude as Ballynoe).
The site, especially its phasing, is still not really understood. For example, the mound was most likely added in a later building phase. A ditch may have surrounded it originally, with a pair of stones outside the western edge perhaps marking an entrance point which has been recorded as being aligned with the Spring Equinox (the midpoint between the Winter and Summer Solstices) on March 21 of each year. Inside the circle is a long low partly kerbed mound lying east–west. The mound has similar (two end burial chambers) features to the Audleystown Court Tomb. Three pairs of stones are positioned outside the circle, and four stones on the western edge of the circle form an entrance, 2.1 m (6 ft 11 in) wide to the circle.

## Excavation

The excavation was conducted between 20th -27th September 1937 & 7th -16th June 1938 by Professor Albert Egges van Giffen, a Dutch archaeologist, and Miss Mary McMurray Gaffikin, an archaeology expert from Newcastle, County Down. Although this was a thorough investigation Professor van Giffen was prevented by the war from completing his work and publishing his results. An illustrated report on the work by W. Groenman-van Waateringe. J. J. Butler and B. K. S. Dijkstra has since been published.
The excavation uncovered a partially curbed long cairn 21 metres in length by 9 metres wide within the stone circle. There were cists at both the east and west ends with the west end later augmented with two more chambers. Gabriel Cooney suggests that it may originally have been a long cairn in the court tomb tradition (like Audleystown), with a kerbed round mound in the passage tomb tradition added later. Waddell believed that the cup marked stones and presence of Carrowkeel Ware connects the site to passage tombs like those at Carrowkeel Megalithic Cemetery. There were also water-smoothed sacred stones called baetyls recovered from the cists which is similar to another excavated site at Millin Bay, also an oval mound covering a long stone-built grave site.
The inner mound originally held two burial cists with cremated human remains, one at each end of the mound. The bones are believed to be taken from seven people, including a young child, and were removed during the excavation. They were stored in the basement of the Groningen Institute of Archaeology where they lay for 90 years until 2023 when Lisa White from Derryboye near Crossgar, a PhD researcher at Queen’s University, who had been trying to track down the bones in the hope of including them as part of her thesis contacted Dr Anna Moles, who is an assistant professor of Human Osteoarchaeology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Dr Moles took them to Queen’s University, where they were received by Lisa and Professor Eileen Murphy at the Department of Archaeology and Palaeoecology.

## Purpose

The original purpose for stone circles in unknown, but many archaeologists believe that they were used for multiple purposes, including burials, religious or ceremonial purposes, and community gatherings. It has also been suggested that the stones were situated in relation to meaningful solar and lunar alignments.

## Mythology

In the Tochmarc Étaíne (The Wooing of Étaín), an early text of the Irish mythological cycle, the mapped site of Mag nInis (the ancient name for Lecale). This is where her father Ailill lived and is likely to be Ballynoe mentioned alongside Emain Macha (Navan Fort) and Tara (Hill of Tara).