Cross-slab, An Cillín Liath, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Crosses & Monuments
On the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, a stone does double duty in a way that is quietly remarkable: it carries both an ogham inscription and a carved Christian cross, two traditions that rarely share the same surface.
Ogham is an early medieval script in which letters are represented by a series of notches and strokes cut along the edge of a stone, and its appearance here alongside a Christian symbol points to a moment of cultural overlap, when older epigraphic habits were being absorbed into a new religious world. The stone stands 1.45 metres high, leaning noticeably to the south, and sits a short distance west of a children's burial ground known as An Cillín Liath, a cillín being the term for an unconsecrated burial ground traditionally used for unbaptised infants.
The ogham inscription along the dexter, or right-hand, angle of the stone reads DOVATTAC AV[I]...ILEH, though the text is damaged in places: a rough patch of quartz obscures the first T, spalling has removed some of the notches belonging to the first I, and the area before the second I has eroded away. What survives is a personal name formula of the kind common to early medieval Irish ogham stones, recording lineage or identity. The cross carved onto the upper face of the stone is something different in character: a Maltese cross enclosed within a grooved circle, neatly executed but not quite mechanically regular. The circle falls just short of compass-drawn perfection, and the four recessed arcs of the cross create truncated petal shapes in relief around it. A small curve extending from the upper left arm of the cross may, if it is not simply a natural feature of the stone, represent the rho element of the chi-rho monogram, an early Christian symbol combining the first two letters of Christ's name in Greek. Nearby, a low sub-circular cairn roughly 6.8 metres across is locally reputed, according to the Irish Folklore Commission's Schools' Collection, to mark the grave of a figure called Liar Dearg.