House - indeterminate date, Ceathrú An Fheirtéaraigh, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
House
Less than a mile north of Dunquin Harbour, within 300 metres of the Atlantic cliff edge, a roughly square patch of ground about 47 by 48 metres across holds the faint outlines of three or four houses that nobody can confidently date.
Their walls have collapsed so thoroughly that what remains are low banks of earth and stone, barely distinguishable from the cultivation ridges that cover much of the same enclosure. The site is known as Kilgobnet, or Cill Ghobnait, and the house foundations share their space with two large penitential cairns inside a smaller, sub-circular enclosure to the east. A stone cross sits on the face of an immense rock outcrop about 100 metres to the south-west, and a holy well, Tobar Ghobnait, lies roughly 120 metres beyond that again.
The whole cluster of monuments is dedicated to St. Gobnait, a saint associated with beekeeping and healing, whose feast day falls on the 11th of February. On that date, rounds are still performed at each of the monuments in turn, a form of devotional circuit-walking in which prayers are said at prescribed stops, a practice with deep roots in Irish religious custom. The penitential cairns, where stones are traditionally added or moved as part of such rounds, point to a long continuity of use at this site, even if the house foundations nearby remain archaeologically ambiguous. J. Cuppage documented the site in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey, and the enclosure walls, built from stone field walls rather than the earthen banks typical of earlier enclosures, suggest the outer boundary at least may be a relatively late addition to a much older sacred landscape.
The site sits in the townland of Ceathrú an Fheirtéaraigh on the Dingle Peninsula, a part of the Kerry Gaeltacht where Irish remains the everyday spoken language. The monuments are scattered across open ground close to the cliff edge, so the approach requires some care, particularly in poor weather. February visitors attending the feast day rounds will find the site at its most active, with the cairns, the cross, and the well all serving as waypoints in a living tradition that continues despite, or perhaps because of, the remote and wind-exposed setting.