Thank you for visiting ShadowsandStone.com.

This site features a small selection of images taken during the course of a long term project to research and photograph Ireland's pre-historic monuments.

Around mid-2003 a fascination with history, particularly the relatively obscure pre-celtic Ireland of the stone and bronze ages, converged with a resurgent interest I had in photography. At that point, digital technology had advanced sufficently to allow very high quality image capture at more affordable costs.

As a teenager I had learned to develop and print my own photographs in the traditional darkroom and this creative aspect of image production captured my imagination. By the early years of this decade, digital technology now allowed similar creative control that professional labs traditionally took care of once the photo enthusiast had exposed their film. Digtal photography removed the need for a traditional wet process and put creative control back into the photographers hands.

Since those early years of the project, my creative interest has shifted out of the one dimensional digital darkroom and more into the three dimensional world. The creative use of multiple lighting sources in the field allows the intricate detail and form of the monuments to almost leap out of the photograph. My style now owes as much to lighting theory from portraiture as traditional landscape photography.

And then there are the moments when the natural light of the sun or the moon moves fleetingly across the land and seems to breath life into the stone itself. It is these moments that merge the mind and the land and renew an ancient connection often missed among busy lives.

In the past few years I have mounted several solo exhibitions in various venues around Ireland. More recently I took part in the 2008 6th World Archaeological Congress in Dublin; both in the 'Ábhar agus Meon: Materials and Mentalities' fringe art exhibition as well as supplying images for press and publicity and acting as photographer for the week's events. Currently I am working on producing a book of photographs and essays which should be completed during 2009.

The main focus of ShadowsandStone.com will continue to be the pre-historic sites of Ireland, of which hundreds are known to exist in varying degrees of decay.

There are two objectives I try to incorporate into each gallery for each site, firstly some general views of the site with the aim of being the next best thing to actually being there yourself. The second objective is to then try and capture some of the mood or atmosphere that changes so much from place to place and at different times of year or day. The best photos naturally come from the 'edge', the edge between night and day, winter and spring, summer and autumn. At these times pre-historic sites take on a new drama and meaning. This is what I hope to translate through some of the more 'other-worldly' images of shapes and changing light.


Although new sites are often added, I still continue to revisit many favourite sites at different times of day/year to try and capture a little part of the enigma that surrounds these ancient stone monuments.

Those unfamiliar with the distinct types of Irish stone age monuments may well recongise a few of the monuments such as Poulnabrone Dolmen (left), a fine example of an Irish Portal Tomb, or perhaps Newgrange and the other famous Boyne Valley sites. But with a good map and a pair of tough boots you could find many strange, intruiging and spectacular sculptures of stone in almost any corner of Ireland.

Click here to explore more of Irelands Dolmens

Apart from Poulnabrone Dolmen above, the other neolithic or late stone age monument that most people can name is of course Newgrange, the famous passage grave in the Boyne Valley which features the celebrated 'roof box' which allows the Winter Solstice sunrise to light up the inner chamber for around 17 days over the solstice period. It also has a large collection of Neolithic art inscribed on the stones of the chambers and passage way as well as the kerb stones that surround the mound.

Newgrange is deservedly world famous and is also a World Heritage site but many other passage tomb complexes exist across Ireland. From the western peninsula of Sligo to the east coast of Louth and Meath, a wide band of tomb development moved across the country over 5,000 years ago starting with the simple boulder circles and chambers of Carrowmore, the 'artificial caves' of Carrowkeel, the Loughcrew complex (right)which sees an explosion of magnificent stone age art and what may have been the final pinnacle of the art at the Boyne Valley sites of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth.

Click here to go to the Passage Tomb page

When people think of stone circles many think of Stonehenge in England. But while Stonehenge is impressive, it is also unique and very different from regular stone circles which are found across Ireland and Great Britain. Irish stone circles are found all over the country but are particularly common around the Cork/Kerry south west corner of the Island. Drombohilly stone circle in Kerry (left) is an excellent example of an Irish stone circle dating from the very late neolithoic/early bronze age, but stone circles also changed form with the passing centuries and territories leaving us with large multiple stone circles in the North of the country, tiny five stone circles in the south west and everything in between.

Click here to see more Stone Circles

Possibly the most ancient beginnings of the stone age tomb building tradition can be seen in Ireland's court tombs, such as Clontygora (right) which sits on a hill side just north of the border in County Armagh. These 'tombs' are so-called after the two arms that reach out in front of the tomb entrance, enclosing a 'court' where it is believed ritual practices centred around a 'cult of the dead' were performed. Many are almost totally destroyed but fine exaples such as Clontygora, Creevykeel in Sligo and Annaghmare, also in Armagh, are preserved just enough to allow us appreciate these mysterious stone works.

To see more Court Tombs, click here

Wedge Tombs such as found at Labbacallee (The Hags Bed), Co. Cork (left) are generally believed to belong to a bronze age tradition of burial. The tombs are named after their wedge shape plan, though they too are found in many forms from quite massive to tiny box chambers. The range of 'grave goods' found inside the few that have been excavated have categorised these as a development after the end of the stone age. The stones that make up the chambers are almost entirely undecorated though most were believed to have been covered in a mound of stones or 'cairn'. As with a lot of these ancient monuments, the cairns have been mostly robbed out to build walls and roads through the millenia.

See more Wedge Tomb galleries here

On almost any journey through Ireland the observant traveller should encounter at least one or two standing stones. These enigmatic and often massive curiosities are found across the country, sometimes in neat rows of three or more or as strange arrangements such as at Lettergorman, County Cork (right) but mostly as solitary punctuations in the landscape. Their meaning or purpose has been lost over the thousands of years since they were erected but they still remain permanent landmarks in the countryside, as was surely their most important function.

There are more Standing Stones in the Stone Circles gallery, here

Click here to go back to the main page

Possibly the most obscure remnants of prehistoric Ireland are the rock carvings found in various locations across the island, typically concentrated in relatively small geographic areas such as the Iveragh and Dingle Peninsulas in Kerry, the Inishowen Peninsula in Donegal and more recently unearthed concentrations in counties Louth and Carlow. The site pictured right is from a cluster on the border of counties Louth and Monaghan.

Known to archaeologists simply as 'rock art', the designs of the carvings seem to conform to a more reduced repertoire then the more extravagant carvings found in passage tombs. Dating these carvings is extremely difficult since dating the pits in a rock surface cannot be done directly. Indirect evidence now suggests the carvings span the early neolithic to the late bronze age. Many carvings were re-used in bronze age tombs and the association still persists.

Often it can be the location of the carved panel that is more spectacular than the carving itself, which can range from simple rounded depressions called cup-marks to more elaborate multiple ring designs joined by lines and satellite rings. This makes the hunt for the elusive panels both highly challenging and especially rewarding.

Click here to explore more of Ireland's rock art.