NEWRY

Above is a line drawing believed to date around 1850 & as you can see Its of a very large stone, 9 feet by 8 & a half inches, it lies approx 3 miles south east of Clonmacnois Abbey. In 1920 It came under the scrutinty of a Professor Mac Allister who was in the company of a Abbe' Breuil ? Between them they came to the conclusion that the marking on the stone were In fact warriors of the Neoglithic period, cross and loop men the called the marks, they were convinced that the over all view that you see id that of a battle where in the warriors fought to the death & indeed a finish. They also decided that the marking were very similar to those on stones found in spain- thus showing the direct links between the two countries at a period far beyond the bronze age. Mac Allister concluded that the stone is one of the most ancient monuments In Ireland if not the oldest ever found.
Heres me a mere mortal like the man himself, and on first looks at this stone I thought it represented a grave yard & or something to do with the Abbey its self. On second thoughts I asked my self if these boys ? girls were in fact fighting or dancing and if they were fighting where are the weapons, the stone had been the subject of much conclusion, but the one thing that dosent go away is the likness of it to others stones In Spain. (acc. to H. Wirth, 1936) it is decorated with a number of motifs including crosses, and something called "The split year" a circle divided in two halfs by a line, Wirth concluded that only the circular parts of the markings are artificial and the rest of the 'decorations' are natural, resulting from the effects of natural chemical solution's from hundreds of years of rain and weathering. Below is another view

This stone was the subject of a write up in the RSAI Journal volume 132 (2002 pp 1999 - 113) this undertaken by Elizabeth Shee Twohig. Very interesting stuff which was found to be of great interest to a certain Eva Perez (from Spain) and like most that study the thing the author saw the stone to be like others i.e those found on the Iberian Peninsula,& especially a couple in Galicia. She thinks that the Clonfinlough carvings may belong to the historic period. She also notes the proximity of the Clonfinlough stone to one of the old routes to Clonmacnois and suggested that the carvings might relate to the activities of pilgrimages (me too) or other users of the road to Clonmacnois. She notes that McDermot and others made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella in Spain in 1445, but to me this is note a note worthy thing because this stone dates way way before then

The stone id seen above In more recent times ,& as you can see it lies at the bottom of a slope, and sort of ramps up to the left, an ideal venue for playing children to run up and down on, & also an ideal chopping block, was it a stone for the odd sacrifice. Could well have been. Could be it was used for dancing on at a particular time of the year, was it a harvest table. did the clans sit on this and feast after a good harvest. Who ever made these marks had a fine chisel and indeed a sharp one, because from the drawing above everything looks very clean cut and basicall rubbishes the the chemical stories of today and these 150 years or so younger than the 1850s drawing above at the top of the page . I prefare the spanish link way back then when my ancestors from Cucurrian made the journey over here and danced with the people they had found allreay dancing here, there is a tradation of dancing in this country you know and if i found a nice big flat stone like this one on the right kind of day and amid all this irish green stuff Id dance too.