Ogham stone, Tullaherin, Co. Kilkenny

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Stone Monuments

Ogham stone, Tullaherin, Co. Kilkenny

At some point before modern record-keeping began, an ancient inscribed stone was pulled from its original context, repurposed as a gate pier, and had a metal bar driven into its top.

That is the condition in which this ogham stone still stands today, upright in the graveyard at Tullaherin, Co. Kilkenny, just south of the nave wall of the medieval church at the site's western end. Ogham is an early medieval script, used roughly between the fourth and seventh centuries, in which letters are represented by a series of notches and strokes cut along the edge of a stone. It was Ireland's earliest writing system, and stones bearing it are found mostly in the south and west of the country. This one carries an inscription so worn that the vowels have largely vanished, leaving only a fragmentary sequence: D[ ... ]T M[U]C[OI ... ]R[ ... ]G[ ... ]N, as recorded by scholar Damian McManus in 1997. The word MUCOI, where it can be partially read, is a formula commonly seen on ogham stones indicating tribal or kin-group affiliation, which suggests the stone once named a person and their lineage, though who that was can no longer be recovered.

The stone's history involves a curious displacement. Although it was found at Loughboreen, elsewhere in Co. Kilkenny, scholars believe it originated at Tullaherin, making its presence back at the site something of a homecoming. It is one of two ogham stones associated with this early church site, which is also notable for its round tower, the kind of tall, tapering stone structure built at Irish monasteries from around the ninth century onwards, most likely as a bell tower and place of refuge. The combination of round tower, two ogham stones, and medieval church fabric marks Tullaherin as a site with a long and layered ecclesiastical history. The stone has since been studied as part of the Ogham in 3D project run by the School of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, which uses photogrammetry and three-dimensional scanning to document inscriptions that are otherwise difficult to read with the naked eye, particularly where centuries of weathering have done their worst.

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