Ecclesiastical enclosure, Letter, Co. Kerry

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Ecclesiastical Sites

Ecclesiastical enclosure, Letter, Co. Kerry

On a south-facing slope below Bentee mountain on the Iveragh Peninsula, an oval earthen platform rises nearly three metres above the surrounding rough pasture.

It is not a natural feature. The platform, measuring roughly 17.7 metres north to south and 25 metres east to west, was shaped and used over a very long period, and what survives on its surface suggests layers of activity that stretch from early medieval times into living memory. A recessed area near the southern edge, flanked by an upright pillar, appears to mark an original entrance. A curving field boundary to the east may preserve the outer edge of what was once a more formally bounded enclosure.

The most legible object on the platform is an ogham stone, a type of early medieval monument inscribed with an alphabet of notched and scored lines along the edges of the stone, used primarily in Ireland between roughly the fourth and seventh centuries. This one stands 1.22 metres high near the south-east corner of the site and carries an inscription read by the scholar R. A. S. Macalister in 1945 as ANM GATTEGLAN, a formula introducing a personal name. Only the first three and last four characters remain clearly visible; the rest are obscured by lichen on the stone's surface. Macalister noted that one letter was indicated by the forfid, a supplementary character used in the later ogham tradition. Elsewhere on the platform are two possible leachta, low stone cairns or mounds associated with early Christian veneration of the dead. One is an oval mound about five metres long and composed partly of quartz; the other is a small area defined by upright slabs laid contiguously. Leachta are understood to mark the graves or memorials of particularly venerated individuals, sometimes saints or founders of local churches. The western portion of the platform holds a burial area with a large number of uninscribed upright slabs, and local tradition records that the site continued in use as a ceallúnach, an informal burial ground for unbaptised infants or others excluded from consecrated ground, until the 1930s.

The site sits on rough pasture and the approach follows the western spur of Bentee mountain, so the ground underfoot is uneven. The ogham inscription is easiest to examine in raking light, which can help distinguish the incised scores from the lichen that currently obscures much of the surface.

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