Ogham stone (present location), Dublin South City, Co. Dublin
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Stone Monuments
A Kerry ogham stone ending up in Dublin South City is unusual enough, but the circumstances of its journey make it stranger still.
This pillar, broken at the top and standing at least 1.16 metres high, was one of four stones brought from Whitefield in County Kerry and put on display at the Dublin Exhibition of 1853 by the MacGillicuddy of the Reeks, a figure whose hereditary Gaelic title hints at the antiquarian pride that motivated the loan. Ogham is an early medieval Irish script, typically carved as a series of notched lines along the edge or angle of a stone, and this example carries a neatly executed inscription running up two angles of the pillar. Three roughly cut crosses were added to it at some later point, suggesting the stone had a longer life in local use than its eventual displacement might imply.
At least two of the four Whitefield stones were originally found inside a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage typically used in early medieval Ireland for storage or refuge. That souterrain, reputed locally to have sat on the north-west side of Baunclune House, does not appear on Ordnance Survey maps and has left no visible trace above ground. The inscription was read by R. A. S. Macalister in 1945 as NOCATI MAQI MAQI-REC [...] MAQI MUCOI UDDAMI, a formula typical of early ogham stones recording a person's name and lineage through the word MAQI, meaning "son of". Macalister's reading was confirmed by Damian McManus in 1991. The stone has since been examined as part of the "Ogham in 3D" project run by the School of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, which has produced detailed digital records of the inscription and makes them freely available through its online database.
The stone's current location in Dublin South City places it far from the Kerry landscape where it was carved, and visitors interested in examining the inscription closely will find the 3D project records at ogham.celt.dias.ie far more legible than the worn angles of the physical pillar. For those who do seek out the stone in person, the inscription runs up rather than down, which can catch the eye off-guard if you are used to reading ogham in reproduction. The three crosses, rougher in execution than the ogham lettering, are worth looking for separately.