Leacht, Cloon, Co. Kerry

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Holy Sites & Wells

Leacht, Cloon, Co. Kerry

On the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, a low stone mound sits quietly within the south-eastern corner of a larger enclosure, its surface scattered with quartz and marked by two bullaun stones.

Bullauns are boulders or slabs bearing one or more cup-shaped hollows, ground into the rock over centuries, and they appear frequently at early ecclesiastical sites across Ireland, where they were associated with prayer, cursing rituals, or the grinding of pigments and grain. Their presence here, resting on top of the mound rather than embedded in the ground, gives the site an air of deliberate arrangement rather than simple accumulation.

The structure itself is known as a leacht, a term for a low commemorative or votive cairn, often found in association with early Christian sites and sometimes marking the spot where a saint rested, died, or was venerated. This particular example measures approximately 2.75 metres north to south and 2.3 metres east to west, and is defined along its northern and western edges by upright slabs, with the body of the mound made up of rough stone infill. The inclusion of quartz is worth noting; quartz was used deliberately at prehistoric and early medieval monuments throughout Ireland, and its appearance here may carry symbolic weight, though the precise intention is long since lost. The site was documented as part of a comprehensive archaeological survey of South Kerry compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan and published by Cork University Press in 1996.

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