Turoe Stone – Iron Age Celtic carving

Overview

The Turoe Stone is the finest piece of Iron Age carving in Ireland, and right now you cannot see it. In 2025 the Office of Public Works lifted the granite boulder off its pad at Bullaun and moved it to a depot in Athenry for conservation. There is no firm reopening date, and no shelter yet built to put it back into, so a trip to the site today finds only an empty concrete base. Worth knowing before you plan a detour; the rest of this page is why the stone is such a loss while it’s away.

What it is: a squat granite pillar, decorated across the whole of its rounded upper half in the flowing, curvilinear La Tène style that spread across Iron Age Europe. The lower half is left plain and unworked, so the carving reads as a band wrapped around the top. Sources can’t even agree on its height – Heritage Ireland and the text of the Wikipedia entry give 1.2m, while Lonely Planet and others say 1.68m – but either way it’s a stone you look down at rather than up to.

The carving

The decoration was made by pocking: the carver worked the surface with a hammer and a point, building up thousands of small indentations so the pattern stands slightly proud of the background. In raking light the relief casts shadows and the design comes forward; in flat light it can be hard to read at all.

The motifs to look for:

• Interlocking spirals – paired, running curves that are the signature of the style.
• Trumpet shapes – flared forms that echo the decorated metalwork of the same period.
• Triskeles – three-armed spirals set into several of the panels.
• The ‘Wall-of-Troy’ band – a running meander that ties the Turoe carving to a wider European decorative tradition.

Heritage Ireland groups the Turoe Stone with the Castlestrange Stone in Roscommon and the Killcluggin Stone as Iron Age ‘cult stones’, the assumption being that the carving marked something ritual rather than decorative. The Castlestrange stone (pictured above) carries a plainer version of the same swirls; the Turoe carving is the more ambitious of the two.

History and relocation

The stone dates to the Iron Age, somewhere between about 100 BC and AD 100. It did not always stand where it later sat at Bullaun. Its original home was beside the rath of Feerwore (Rath Férach Mhor), an Iron Age ringfort, and local tradition long tied it to a nearby lios, or fairy fort. In the late 19th century it was moved to the farmyard, which pulled it out of its archaeological context for good and left its exact original purpose an open question.

It became a national talking point in the 20th century. In 1967 it was carried up to Dublin for the ROSC 67 art exhibition, a decision that annoyed a good number of people in the heritage world. The OPW eventually took it into care, setting it on a concrete base with a protective cattle-grid in 2005, before the 2025 removal to Athenry. Even when it was on site the viewing was poor: for years the stone sat inside a small garden shed with a single dirty window, so most visitors ended up squinting at it through glass rather than walking around it.

When it returns

The OPW’s stated plan is to bring the stone back to Bullaun and set it under a purpose-built, weather-proof shelter that would allow year-round viewing without the granite taking any more rain and frost. No date has been announced. Check the OPW or Heritage Ireland websites before travelling, because until that shelter goes up there is nothing at the site to see.

Around Bullaun

The stone sits on the grounds of Turoe Pet Farm, a separate family-run attraction with its own opening hours and admission (it’s open mainly at weekends, so check ahead). The two are not the same visit, and the state monument being closed has no bearing on whether the pet farm is open.

The nearest town is Loughrea, 6 km south on the R350, with cafés, shops and St Brendan’s Cathedral, a striking early-20th-century church worth a look for its Harry Clarke stained glass. Further afield:

• Abbeyknockmoy – Cistercian abbey ruins beside a lake, with surviving medieval wall paintings (Abbeyknockmoy).
• Aughrim – the interpretive centre for the 1691 Battle of Aughrim, the bloodiest battle ever fought on Irish soil (Aughrim).
• Galway city – medieval core and a good base, about 30 minutes south (Galway City).

Practical information

The Turoe Stone is a state-owned National Monument in the care of the Office of Public Works, and an unguided site.

Getting there: the site is off the R350, 6 km north of Loughrea. Public transport doesn’t reach it directly; buses stop in Loughrea, from where you’d need a taxi for the final stretch. It’s a low-traffic regional road, which makes it a fair cycling route if the stone is ever back on display.

Note on access: the stone stands on private farmyard land, so keep to the marked area and treat the farm with respect. There is no visitor centre or guided tour, and while it’s away for conservation there is nothing to view at all.