Rock art, Canearagh, Co. Kerry

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Rock art, Canearagh, Co. Kerry

A large sandstone boulder sitting in boggy, rock-strewn pasture above Canearagh carries marks that were almost certainly hidden under turf for much of their recent history.

The bleached rock surface just north of the motifs suggests the area was only recently deturfed, meaning whatever was inscribed here had been quietly buried. The boulder itself is substantial, pentagonal in plan, up to 1.1 metres high, with sides ranging from two to four metres in length. Its east and west faces slope upward to meet at a central ridge, much of which is still capped with turf. The carvings are concentrated on the southern end of the southeast-facing surface, and they are small and precise: a cross-in-circle, a picked line, a second ringed motif with internal picking, and a tight cluster of pickmarks.

Rock art of this kind, produced by repeatedly striking stone with a harder tool to remove small flakes and leave shallow marks, is a broad category in Irish prehistory, with most examples dated loosely to the Neolithic or Bronze Age. The cross-in-circle here is carefully described: an irregularly shaped ring, coming to a point at its west-southwest end, enclosing a cross formed by two intersecting lines set slightly off-centre. A short separate line extends from the ring's eastern end toward the southeast. The second motif, a loosely picked oval ring bisected by an irregular line of picking, sits just downslope to the northeast. Neither the hollows between the two ringed motifs nor the grooves on a nearby low-lying rock to the southwest appear to be deliberate markings. The site was identified as rock art by Aoibheann Lambe in 2018, which means it is a relatively recent addition to the known record.

The boulder sits at roughly 130 metres above sea level, and the views from it are extensive. To the southwest lies Coomsaharn, and to the northwest, beyond Droum Hill, the Dingle Peninsula comes into view. The decorated surface faces southeast and slopes upward toward the northwest, so the motifs catch light from a particular angle. They are small enough, the largest ring spanning roughly 16 centimetres in diameter, that they could easily be overlooked without knowing exactly where to look.

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