Cloughmore
Coordinates: 54°05′53″N 6°11′31″W / 54.098°N 6.192°W
Cloughmore, known locally as "The Big Stone" (from Irish an Chloch Mhór, meaning "the big stone"),[1] is a huge granite boulder found about 1,000 feet (300 m) above the village of Rostrevor, County Down, Northern Ireland,[2] on a relatively flat area of Silurian metasedimentary rock on the side of Slieve Martin overlooking Carlingford Lough and the Cooley peninsula in County Louth.
Features
The granite boulder, which has a calculated mass of 50 tonnes,[3] is a glacial erratic, thought to have been transported from Scotland (from an island in Strathclyde bay)[4] and deposited by retreating ice during the last Ice Age.[2] The Cloughmore Stone is usually the venue at Easter where the residents of Rostrevor would usually go up and roll their Easter eggs down the hill. This has become sort of a tradition for the Rostrevor residents.
Legend
Local legend has it that the stone was thrown from the Cooley Mountains, on the other side of Carlingford Lough, by the giant Fionn mac Cumhaill.[2]
References
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cloughmore Stone. |
- ↑ "Cloughmore". Ulster Placenames - County Down. Retrieved 2008-06-08.
- 1 2 3 "Cloughmore (Big Stone)". Cloughmore Male Voice Choir. Archived from the original on 2008-02-29. Retrieved 2008-06-08.
- ↑ "Mourne Cooley Gullion geotourism 3D". Retrieved 18 May 2015.
- ↑ "Drumlin Country". The Newry Journal. 22 April 2004. Retrieved 2008-06-08.
