Bullaun stone, Caheracruttera, Co. Kerry

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Holy Sites & Wells

Bullaun stone, Caheracruttera, Co. Kerry

On a south-facing slope above Castlemaine Harbour, a rough sandstone block sits broken in two, missing most of its lower section.

What remains measures just 46 by 38 centimetres, yet cut into its upper surface is a carefully formed circular depression, almost vertical-sided, 24 centimetres across and 15 centimetres deep. This is a bullaun stone, a type of carved or hollowed boulder found across early medieval Ireland and often associated with monastic or sacred sites. The precise purpose of the depressions is still debated, though they have been linked to liturgical use, votive practice, and the grinding of pigments or medicines. Here at Caheracruttera, the stone survives in a damaged and fragmentary state, its original context partially obscured by the centuries.

The bullaun sits within or near an irregular stone-walled enclosure on the same slope, though dense vegetation makes any close examination of that structure difficult. The enclosure's classification remains uncertain. Folklore and place name evidence both point towards an ecclesiastical origin, suggesting this may once have been a church site or early monastic enclosure of some kind, a not uncommon arrangement on the Dingle Peninsula, where early Christian remains are scattered across the landscape in considerable numbers. J. Cuppage documented the site in the 1986 Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the peninsula, by which point the stone was already in its broken condition.

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