Church, Lios Deargáin, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Churches & Chapels
On the south-south-western slopes of Croaghskearda, overlooking the flat, waterlogged ground around Trabeg on the Dingle Peninsula, there is a large circular enclosure that once served as a calluragh burial ground, a type of informal graveyard, often used for unbaptised infants or others excluded from consecrated ground, that sits outside the formal structures of the Church.
Within this enclosure stand a cross-inscribed pillar stone and a bullaun stone, the latter being a boulder with one or more cup-shaped depressions, likely used for ritual purposes across many centuries. Several other features inside the enclosure resist easy explanation, their origins and function remaining uncertain.
The site is more complicated than it first appears, because what survives is only a fragment of what once existed here. Writing in 1939, the Irish scholar and folklorist known as An Seabhac recorded the site of a church at Lios Deargáin, along with caves or souterrains, underground stone-lined passages associated with early medieval settlement, lying in the field to the south of the enclosure. Neither the church nor the souterrains are traceable today. The enclosure itself was in active use as a burial ground until the 19th century, and the site had a devotional life beyond that: a turas, a traditional penitential circuit involving prayer and movement between sacred stations, was formerly held here on Good Friday. Part of that circuit included a visit to a holy well located roughly 200 metres to the north-east of the enclosure.
