Bullaun stone, Inchaleagh, Co. Cork

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Holy Sites & Wells

Bullaun stone, Inchaleagh, Co. Cork

At Inchleagh in mid Cork, an ancient carved stone sits doing the work of a footstone, wedged into a gap in a north-south field fence.

Whoever placed it there was presumably more interested in plugging a hole than in preserving a piece of early medieval stonework, which is precisely what makes this object quietly arresting. The stone is large and irregular, and it bears two deliberately carved hollows on its upper face, worn smooth over centuries of use.

Bullauns are stones into which one or more cup-shaped depressions have been ground or pecked, and they appear all across Ireland, most often in association with early Christian sites, holy wells, and burial grounds. Their precise function remains debated; some were almost certainly used for grinding or processing plant material, others seem to have acquired devotional significance, with the water that collects in the hollows attributed with healing properties. This particular example has two hollows of slightly different sizes: the larger measures roughly 29 centimetres across and 17 centimetres deep, sitting near the centre of the stone, while a smaller hollow, about 19 centimetres wide and 14 centimetres deep, sits off to one side. That combination of two hollows on a single stone is not unusual, but the detail gives this one a specificity that distinguishes it from a generic find. Adding to its context, a disused burial ground lies approximately 100 metres to the east, a proximity that fits the wider pattern of bullauns appearing at the edges of sacred or funerary landscapes.

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