Church, Kilmovee, Co. Waterford
Co. Waterford |
Churches & Chapels
Two bullaun stones sit embedded in the wall of a narrow lane beside a grass-covered enclosure in Kilmovee, County Waterford, and between them they raise more questions than the site has yet answered. Bullaun stones are boulders or slabs with one or more deliberately ground basins hollowed into their surface; they are found across Ireland in association with early medieval church sites, though their precise function remains debated. Here, both stones are of Old Red Sandstone conglomerate. The smaller, D-shaped example measures roughly 0.4 metres by 0.33 metres, its single basin truncated at one side, as if the stone was cut to fit its current position. The larger, at nearly a metre in length, sits about 35 metres further along the same wall. Neither was simply lost here; both were built deliberately into the west face of the lane's eastern wall, which suggests they were moved and repurposed at some point, their original context obscured.
The enclosure they once belonged to is itself ambiguous. What survives is a D-shaped, grass-covered area roughly 58 metres east to west and 22 metres north to south, defined by a low scarp and faint traces of an external fosse, the shallow ditch that would have marked the boundary of an early ecclesiastical precinct. Originally the enclosure may have been oval, a shape commonly associated with early Irish church sites, but a field bank has cut across its southern edge and altered its outline. A low mound, about 5.5 metres in diameter, sits near the centre. Beneath the lane to the west, locals report a hollow sound underfoot, consistent with a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage sometimes associated with early settlements. A blocked well nearby is not considered a holy well by local tradition. Archaeological testing carried out in 2000 by Pollock found evidence of furnaces about 85 metres to the north-west, and further work to the east in 2011 produced nothing related to the site. On the strength of that latter investigation, Pollock raised the possibility that the site may not be ecclesiastical in origin at all, despite its longstanding classification as a church site and its earlier notice in Power's 1952 survey of the area.
