Bullaun stone, Milleens, Co. Kerry

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Holy Sites & Wells

Bullaun stone, Milleens, Co. Kerry

In a rough pasture beside the Sheen River in south-west Kerry, a large boulder sits with a small, water-filled depression at its centre and a smooth oval stone resting inside it.

That combination, a bullaun stone with its characteristic grinding hollow and a loose stone cradled within, has been enough to give the place a quiet local reputation as a holy well, and people have long come here believing the water in the hollow can cure warts. The gap between archaeological classification and folk belief is part of what makes bullaun stones worth paying attention to; they are ancient rock features, their original purpose debated, yet in many parts of Ireland they have accumulated layers of devotional meaning entirely independent of whatever they were first made for.

The boulder itself is substantial, roughly 1.9 metres long and 0.8 metres wide, standing about 0.6 metres above the ground. The hollow at its centre is modest in scale, approximately 25 centimetres by 22 centimetres and only 7 centimetres deep, but it holds water and the oval stone within it. About 30 metres to the south-south-west lies a cliff-edge fort, a promontory-style enclosure using natural topography as part of its defence, which suggests this stretch of ground was of some significance in the past. Whether the bullaun and the fort are connected in any meaningful historical sense is unknown, but their proximity in an otherwise unremarkable pasture gives the spot a quietly layered quality that is easy to overlook from a distance.

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Pete F
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