Inscribed stone (present location), Kilkea Demesne, Co. Kildare
Co. Kildare |
Stone Monuments
Somewhere within the grounds of Kilkea Demesne in County Kildare sits a sixteenth-century inscribed stone that does not belong there, at least not originally. It was brought from Aughanure, its original home recorded separately under a different entry, and placed in a purpose-built arcaded structure to the south-west of Kilkea Castle. The stone is one of several monuments assembled in this same spot, making the arcade less a natural heritage feature and more a deliberate, curated collection.
The man responsible for this gathering was Lord Walter FitzGerald, who assembled the monuments in what is described as a modern arcaded area. FitzGerald was a figure of considerable interest in Irish antiquarian circles in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the arrangement at Kilkea reflects a collecting impulse common among estate owners of that era, who sometimes relocated or consolidated archaeological fragments onto their own land for preservation or display. The inscribed stone itself dates to the sixteenth century, though the notes do not specify what the inscription says or depicts. Its original location at Aughanure is treated as a distinct site in its own right, a recognition that moving a monument does not erase its provenance, even if it complicates the historical record.
