Penitential station, Deelin More, Co. Clare

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Holy Sites & Wells

Penitential station, Deelin More, Co. Clare

Sometimes the most intriguing historical sites are the ones that have entirely disappeared.

On a narrow, rock-strewn terrace partway up an east-facing slope in Deelin More, County Clare, there is a place that appears on maps, carries a name weighted with religious significance, and yet, when someone finally went to look closely, had left no visible trace at all.

The site is recorded on the 1915 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map under the name Turrenneefa, a name that translates roughly as "the little tower of the saint." Penitential stations were places, often associated with early Christian holy figures, where the faithful would carry out prescribed acts of devotion, typically involving circuits of prayer walked around a specific stone, well, or structure. The name here strongly implies that something of that kind once stood or was visited on this terrace. Whether the "little tower" referred to a physical structure or was simply a local way of naming a sacred spot associated with a saint is now impossible to say with certainty. By 1997, when the site was inspected, nothing remained to answer the question.

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