Bullaun stone, Doire Mhór Thiar, Co. Kerry

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Holy Sites & Wells

Bullaun stone, Doire Mhór Thiar, Co. Kerry

On the southern shore of Tralee Bay, within the eroded earthen ring of an old rath, sits a bullaun stone.

A bullaun is a boulder or outcrop with one or more deliberately hollowed cup-shaped depressions ground into its surface, and examples turn up across Ireland in association with early medieval religious and domestic sites. What makes them persistently interesting is that their exact purpose remains contested: they have been linked to grain processing, to ritual use, and to the collection of water believed to carry curative properties. Their presence within a secular enclosure like this one, rather than at a church site, is not unusual but is worth remarking on.

The rath itself, designated KE037-028, sits on level, low-lying ground and retains the outline of an earthen bank, though the bank is now considerably worn and broken in places. Inside the enclosure are traces of a circular hut and a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage that would have served for storage or concealment. Two further possible hut sites lie outside the bank, suggesting some activity beyond the enclosed area. The bullaun stone at the site was recorded by O'Connell in 1939 and was later included in J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Corca Dhuibhne peninsula, which catalogued the remarkably dense concentration of ancient remains across the Dingle area. That density is worth keeping in mind: this corner of Kerry preserves an extraordinary quantity of early medieval and prehistoric material within a relatively compact landscape.

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