For David Keohan, stone lifting started as a means to build muscle when his gym closed down at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but it has since morphed into a “mission” to bring back what he describes as a “lost culture” in Ireland.
For centuries, the stones on Ireland’s rugged landscape were more than simple geographical features. The ability to lift a particular stone was used in tests of strength, and often as rites of passage at events like weddings and funerals.
However, the practice began to disappear in the 18th and 19th centuries during British colonisation and vanished almost entirely around the 1840s when the Great Famine devastated the country. Most of the stones remain untouched where they were last lifted.
Keohan (44), who hails from Waterford city and holds a kettlebell-lifting world record, learned there was a tradition of stone lifting in Scotland, Iceland and also the Basque region of Spain, before exploring Ireland’s own national folklore.
He has so far found 31 such stones “dotted around” Ireland, almost of all which he has lifted himself. They are predominantly around the west, but he is just back from the north where he found one in Derry.
“There were hundreds of stories about this, of men and women lifting stones as feats of strength and rites of passage,” he says. “So I went to these areas and started asking older people about the stories.
“Sure enough there was always someone in the area who knew about it. You’re meeting these people and they’re telling you a load about it and the history behind it, the stone or the last person to lift it.
“There is always a history attached to it. It’s not just a stone out the field. It’s a specific stone in an area, usually a prominent area like a crossroads. The lifting of these stones could be going back 1,500 years in some cases.”
Keohan, who goes by the Instagram handle “Indiana Stones”, says the Irish lifting stones are the heaviest in the world at an average of 170kg. However, a pillar stone he found last weekend weighed about 270kg.
“There was one on the Aran Islands which was part of a village,” he says. “The test of strength in the village was to go out and lift this stone. It was a great day in a young man’s life when he was able to go out and lift that stone off the ground.
“The chieftains used to be coronated at this stone up on the hill and it was a test of strength to lift it off the ground.
“There are loads of different ways of lifting them. For some of them, a centimetre was enough. That’s called getting the wind under it, which I think it a lovely poetic way of lifting it.
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“Some of them had to be lifted to chest. One in Ireland had to be lifted onto a plinth. There’s a stone on Inis Meáin that had to be lifted on to a wall as part of your training to be a stone mason. One in Kilkenny had to be walked around a tree.”
Keohan says it takes a lot of training because it’s “totally different” from lifting a deadlift. “The shape is difficult and the texture could be smooth and rounded,” he explains. “It’s just a hell of a lot more difficult and you are lifting it from the ground as well.”
What’s even better for Keohan is that this “mission” to bring back this lost element of Irish culture appears to be gaining momentum. He is writing a book on it and is planning to set up tours. There are also four documentaries about it currently being worked on.
“It’s gone from me going around in my car for the craic to taking on a national identity,” he says. “This was part of our heritage that was taken from us. People are latching on to this now and want to be a part of it. People have taken it to their hearts.”
