Cross-inscribed stone, Glebe, Co. Kerry

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Crosses & Monuments

Cross-inscribed stone, Glebe, Co. Kerry

On a quiet slope in County Kerry, three rough stone slabs sit before the entrance to a spring well, each one incised with a cross cut directly into the rock.

They are not polished monuments or church furnishings; they are working objects, placed in front of a small drystone-built, lintelled enclosure built into the hillside, marking a site that once drew people on a fixed day each year for reasons that were at once devotional and communal.

The well is known as Tobergobnet, or Tobar Ghobnaite in Irish, and it lies about 200 metres southeast of Killinane Church and graveyard, set beside an old trackway that presumably once carried those visiting it on foot. The name connects the site to Saint Gobnait, a figure associated with beekeeping and healing, venerated at several wells and churches across Munster. The three cross-incised slabs in front of the well structure are typical of a widespread early Christian practice of marking sacred sites with simple incised crosses, sometimes carved by pilgrims themselves as acts of devotion. A pattern, which is the Irish term for a local pilgrimage or rounds ceremony performed at a holy well or saint's shrine, was formerly held here on the 3rd of March, a date that would correspond with a feast associated with Gobnait. The use of the word "formerly" suggests the pattern had already lapsed by the time the site was formally recorded, though when exactly the tradition ended is not known.

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