Ecclesiastical enclosure, Termons, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Ecclesiastical Sites

Ecclesiastical enclosure, Termons, Co. Kerry

On the south-east slope of a ridge overlooking Lough Currane in Co. Kerry, there is a small oval enclosure that the Ordnance Survey's name books once described, with brisk practicality, as both an earthen fort and a burial ground for children.

The two categories are less contradictory than they sound: across early Christian Ireland, pre-existing earthworks were frequently adapted as ecclesiastical enclosures, and unbaptised infants were often interred in liminal, semi-sacred spaces set apart from consecrated parish ground. What survives at Termons sits beneath a tangle of overgrowth and trees, and is difficult to read clearly, but the traces that remain point to a site of some complexity and local importance.

The enclosure is oval in plan, roughly 27 metres north to south and 23 metres east to west, bounded by a ruined rampart with a possible entrance on the east side marked by two upright slabs. Built into the southern arc of the enclosing element are the foundations of a small circular hut, just 3.35 metres in internal diameter, of a type associated with early monastic use. A stone-built trapezoidal platform, entered through two erect slabs set 1.2 metres apart, occupies the interior. At its western end stood a carved stone slab, 0.9 metres high, bearing a linear Latin cross with a bar terminal on its upper shaft; on the reverse face was a second, poorly preserved cross that may have incorporated a reversed chi-rho monogram, an early Christian symbol combining the Greek letters for Christ. That slab has since disappeared. The antiquary John Windele, visiting in 1848, noted its presence and also recorded that Easter stations, traditional rounds of prayer at holy sites, were still being observed here at that time. Whether the stone he saw is the same one described in later accounts cannot now be confirmed, as it can no longer be located.

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