Ecclesiastical enclosure, Caherlehillan, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Ecclesiastical Sites
On the lower western slopes of Mullaghnarakill mountain, on the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, there is an early ecclesiastical enclosure that contains something you would not expect from the outside: a small stone shrine of a type so unusual it defies easy classification.
The site sits on a level terrace above a tributary of the Ferta river, looking west across an open valley. What remains of the original enclosing wall, a rubble construction faced with large horizontal slabs and averaging 1.8 metres wide, survives only along the eastern to south-western arc; the rest has been replaced by modern field walls and a laneway. Inside, the north-eastern quadrant is raised above the rest of the enclosure and filled with uninscribed upright slabs. This area is known locally as a ceallúnach, a type of unconsecrated burial ground associated with unbaptised children, and children were interred here up to the early twentieth century.
In the south-eastern portion of that raised quadrant stand two carved cross-slabs and a poorly preserved shrine that appears to be a variant of what archaeologists call a corner-post shrine, a form of early medieval stone monument in which a rectangular mound is defined by upright edge-set slabs and marked at its corners by low pillars. The mound here, roughly 2.9 metres by 1.9 metres, is composed largely of stone and includes some quartz, with what appears to be a paved upper surface. Several of the retaining slabs are missing or buried, and the survivors lean outward. The two cross-slabs nearby are each carved on their western faces: one carries a linear Latin cross with C-scroll terminals and a roundel of matching scroll motifs beneath; the other, shorter and broader at its base, bears an encircled Maltese cross with a grooved stem below it that widens into a lozenge midway down, terminates in a small triangular expansion, and is flanked by S-shaped motifs and a stylised bird carved in profile. A third slab recorded by Macalister in 1939 has since gone missing; a photograph from the 1950s suggests it too carried a Maltese cross or a cross of arcs. Excavation of the site was undertaken as part of University College Cork's undergraduate training programme, and much of what lies beneath the surface remained unexamined at the time the above-ground features were recorded.