Over the centuries, Ireland has accumulated a lot of statues and monuments around the country. Many are positioned on remote hill tops or prominences. However, these remote locations are now making them vulnerable to vandalism.
The oldest of these monuments are simple stone cairns built up on mountain tops. These can be difficult to date, particularly because succeeding generations of local residents and more-recently hikers tend to add stones to the cairn to mark their visit. (In recent years, some misguided people have taken stones from some cairns as some sort of good luck charm — causing concerned locals in at least one location to remove signs pointing to cairns that are particularly badly affected.*) Read the rest of this entry »