Extreme Axes

• Ballyvackey Boulder-Burial
• Breeny More Multiple Stone Circle & Boulder-Burials
• Carrigagrenane Multiple Stone Circle
• Coorleigh South Mass Rock / Boulder-Burial
• Derryduff More Possible Megalithic Structure
• Dromasta Standing Stone Pair
• Glanbrack Five Stone Circle
• Gortloughra Standing Stone Pair
• Gortloughra Standing Stone
• Kealkill Standing Stone Pair
• Keamore Boulder-Burial
• Kilcrohane Standing Stone Pair
• Mill Little Standing Stone Pair
• Rathcool Standing Stone Pair
• Templebryan Multiple Stone Circle

These are bronze age monuments of the Cork-Kerry Stone Circle Complex with axes that appear to indicate declinations beyond those occupied by the sun and moon. Axes with extreme azimuths that, due to high horizons, do indicate solar or lunar events are not included in this category.

It should also be noted that there is an observed tendency for monuments indicating the direction of major standstill in the south-west to point slightly beyond it when there is not a good natural marker on the horizon. This is in the nature of an exaggerated hand gesture and such cases are not included in this category either.

With extreme axes there is no obvious consistent pattern to the indicated declinations that might suggest orientation to particular celestial phenomena. Having said that, it has become apparent that in many cases the monument axis does more or less bisect the space between a major standstill and north or south.

However, in every case to date, it can be argued that there are particular reasons to pay more than normal attention to the south-east/north-west axis, perhaps to an even greater degree than to the more usually preferred south-west/north-east one. More specifically, it would seem to refer especially to the south-east.

Extreme axes would therefore seem to be a convention used by the builders of monuments normally oriented towards the south-west for indicating a certain superiority of the south-eastern skyline for luni-solar observation.