Bullaun stone, Great Island, Co. Wexford

Co. Wexford |

Holy Sites & Wells

Bullaun stone, Great Island, Co. Wexford

A large granite stone with a deliberate hollow worn or worked into its upper surface sits in open ground on Great Island in County Wexford, about a kilometre south of where it spent most of its known existence.

The move happened around 1976, which means the stone now occupies a different landscape entirely from the early medieval enclosure on whose perimeter it once stood. That displacement is quietly unsettling: the object survives, but the relationship between it and its original context has been severed.

Bullaun stones are boulders or rock outcrops bearing one or more artificial basins, and they turn up across Ireland in association with early Christian sites, holy wells, and enclosures. Their precise function is debated, but they are generally understood to carry ritual or votive significance, and the water that collects in their basins has long been credited with healing properties. This particular example was recorded by the antiquarian T. J. Westropp in 1918, who noted its dimensions as roughly three feet by two feet, with an oval scoop about twelve inches across. The stone itself is a triangular piece of granite measuring approximately 0.8 metres by 0.7 metres, with an undulating upper surface that rises and falls between 0.28 and 0.52 metres. The single basin, around 0.3 metres in diameter, shifts in depth between 0.16 and 0.23 metres depending on where you measure it against the uneven surface. One detail the stone carries without meaning to is a record of its own history: the upper surface has acquired a grey patina from its years exposed on the bank of the enclosure annexe, while the underside, long buried or sheltered, remains a clean white.

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