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Monumental Standing Stones
11/15/2011 1:20:29 PM
(Part 1 of 2)
The Australian Standing Stones began as an idea by the then Convenor of the Celtic Council of Australia, Peter Alexander AO in 1988.
The Council saw this initiative as a bold one - to build a monumental symbol of the ancient Celtic nations of Europe as a focal point not only to honour those “new” Australians from Celtic lands but also the millions of descendants of those pioneers.
With no national monument or memorial in common, the time was right. It was Australia's 1988 'Bicentenary Year' and the Celtic Council (CCA) put out a call to towns and districts around the nation to respond to the idea of erecting a ring of standing stones inspired by the Ring of Brodgar on the Isle of Mainland in Scotland's Orkney archipelago (in Scottish Gaelic: Arcaibh).
The concept of a ring of standing stones was chosen as a reminder that would last through Australia's future. Although not identified as built by Celtic speaking people's in Europe, these sorts of Atlantic fringe monuments have stood in common as part of their landscape through the known 3,000+ year history of the Celtic speaking people of what are now Brittany, Scotland, Cornwall, Ireland, Wales and Isle of Man, and for a very long time for the formerly Celtic speaking inhabitants of Galicia and Asturias.
While an encouraging number of towns expressed interest – accepting that funding for the construction would be borne by the locality - eventually the CCA settled on the Northern Tablelands town of Glen Innes, which responded with a 46-page submission.
Members of a CCA delegation that visited the Glen Innes Municipality and then Severn Shire Council area in 1990 were overwhelmed by the vision, readiness, and support of the community.
The inspection saw the proposed location on a flattened ridge on a hill to the east of the town in the Centennial Parklands. The proposal took in localities around the Red Range area where suitable stones lay in paddocks and extending to nearby areas settled by Celts from Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall (eg. Emmaville & Torrington), and Wales (eg. the locality of Llangothlin).
It was, and is, an ambitious project by a small, dedicated group of citizens who wanted to mark Glen Innes's Celtic heritage and create something to help secure the communities’ future. It was also proof that not only the right site for the stones had been found but that the community knew its Celtic roots and the monument would sit in a wider landscape that honoured the Celts.
Consultation with the district Aboriginal Land Council established that the site was not sacred to the local Ngoorabul people.
Accordingly, the choice of Glen Innes, NSW, was jointly announced by Peter Alexander, for the Celtic Council of Australia and the visiting Mayor of Glen Innes, Scotland, David Donnelly.
Local pharmacist John Tregurtha AM chaired the committee delegated to build the array, and Lex Ritchie, then the town's tourist officer and an expert bushman, spent three months scouring the bush within 50km of Glen Innes for the stones. They had to stand 3.7 metres from ground level, which meant each to be 5.5 metres in total length.
The organisers found that only three stones which could be used in their natural state - others had to be split from larger rock bodies.
Alderman George Rozynski, a former Snowy Mountains Scheme worker, who at 17 migrated with his family from Poland, came up with the solution. He remembered his rock drilling work on the Snowy and heard of a new expanding compound which could split rocks without using explosives.
With another alderman, Bill Tyson, he spent hours in the bush drilling massive granite rocks. "The compound was a powder which was mixed to the consistency of a slurry and poured into the drill holes," Mr Rozynski recalled. "When we returned the next morning the rock was cracked..."
It took more than six months of further effort, spearheaded by Bob Dwyer, who went on to become a Mayor of Glen Innes, and businessman Ted Nowlan, using a 12 tonne forklift and other heavy equipment to load and transport the stones on a timber loader to the Centennial Parklands site. The weight of the stones averaged 17 tonnes.
Sponsors were invited to pay A$1,000 each to help defray the cost of the Stones. Societies, Clans, families, and businesses from across Australia and the world responded and within a fortnight all were snapped up.
The three central Stones were excluded from sponsorship: the Australis Stone for all Australians, the Gaelic Stone for Gaelic- speaking Celts from Ireland, parts of Scotland, and the Isle of Man, and the Brythonic Stone for the British-speaking Celts of Wales, Cornwall and Brittany (and formerly parts of Scotland).