Ogham stone (present location), Baile An Tsagairt, Co. Kerry

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Stone Monuments

Ogham stone (present location), Baile An Tsagairt, Co. Kerry

On a low but prominent hillock between Dingle Harbour and Trabeg, ten ancient stones have been arranged into a deliberate circle, like a small parliament of the very old.

None of them were originally placed here. They were gathered from various spots in the surrounding area, their precise original positions unrecorded, and set within a circular enclosure known as An Cheallúnach or An Lisín, on the site of the old Ballintaggart church and burial ground. The effect is unusual: ogham stones, which are typically encountered alone in fields or built into walls, here form a congregation.

Ogham is an early medieval Irish script in which letters are represented by a series of notches and strokes cut along the edge of a stone, read from the bottom upward. The stones at Ballintaggart carry inscriptions that are among the more legible examples of the form in County Kerry. This particular stone, just under a metre in length, bears an inscription that reads clearly as AKEVRITTI, a personal name in the genitive case, as is typical of ogham commemorative stones. The formula generally translates to something like "of Akevritti", marking the stone as a memorial. The site is listed as National Monument No. 64, and the stone was catalogued by Cuppage in 1986. More recently, it was examined as part of the Ogham in 3D project run by the School of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, an initiative that uses photogrammetry to produce detailed digital models of ogham inscriptions, making them accessible to researchers regardless of weathering or physical access.

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