Clooniff Quern Stone

Thanks to an astute local eye, this lovely quern stone was spotted in the landscape of Clooniff.

Quern stones, used in pairs, were for hand grinding a variety of materials, in this case most likely cereal into flour.  This example is the upper mobile stone, called a muller or handstone.  The central hole is called the eye and the outer hole is where a handle would have been placed to allow the user rotate the quern over the stationary lower stone called the saddle.

This stone has been inspected by the National Museum (NMI Registered Number 2022:235) and Moycullen Heritage had it 3D recorded which you can view on the following link