Ogham stone, Mangerton, Co. Kerry

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Stone Monuments

Ogham stone, Mangerton, Co. Kerry

Beneath a levelled field on the slopes of Mangerton in County Kerry, there is a stone that may or may not be readable, inside a structure that may or may not be what archaeologists think it is.

That combination of uncertainties is precisely what makes it interesting.

The stone in question is a broken roof lintel, found inside what has been identified as a possible souterrain, an underground passage or chamber typically built during the early medieval period, often for storage or refuge. Along one corner of the lintel, lines had been etched in a pattern resembling ogham, the early Irish script in which letters are represented by notches and strokes cut along a central stem line, most commonly along the edge of a standing stone. The lintel was removed from the souterrain at some point, then returned to it, and the whole structure was subsequently sealed over and the ground above it levelled off. The stone is no longer visible at the surface, and there is nothing above ground to indicate that anything lies beneath.

What remains is essentially a rumour held in the landscape. The information about the inscription came from local sources rather than from direct archaeological examination, which means the ogham identification is tentative, and the souterrain classification carries its own qualification. The stone has not, as far as is known, been formally read or recorded in detail. It sits sealed under Mangerton, a carved edge in the dark, waiting for an excavation that may never come.

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