For some weeks/months now myself and Ken Williams have been trying to pick the right day to hunt down a lovely rock art panel in Crannagh townland, County Carlow. It's a 1.9km walk from the road to the stone, which is situated on a rocky slope making finding it quite daunting. While I was waiting for Ken to arrive a local farmer told me the best route up the hill, but knew nothing of the stone. Then, shortly after Ken arrived, a local man (named Mike I think - my memory's terrible so forgive me if I'm wrong) stopped to chat. He'd tried finding the stone himself before, but hadn't managed it. I gave him the GPS coordinates I had, which are pretty accurate - they turned out to be just 14m out.

The walk up the valley alongside Mountain River is a relatively easy one. All the time the top of Mount Leinster beckons you onward - well, today just the radio mast was poking through some low cloud, but the effect is almost the same. The stone is a beauty. After spending quite some time photographing the panel and saying that there must be some more in the area I wandered off to look at a few stones. I was attracted to the largest rock on the hillside and guess what ... it is decorated! It is not as nice as the first panel, nor as well-preserved, but it's there and I discovered it! My first rock art discovery! What's more, the first Crannagh panel was thought to be the highest in Leinster, but not any more. This new panel is about 10m higher.

After returning to our cars we called in at a farm in Knocksquire to see if we could see another panel that was found nearby and moved to the farmyard. It now resides in Carlow museum according to the farmer.

I then headed home via the lovely wall-embedded rock art panel at Ballinkillin to get a good GPS reading and some better photos.