Rock art, Derreeny, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Rock art, Derreeny, Co. Kerry

On a south-east-facing slope above the Kealduff river valley in County Kerry, a carved boulder sits in rough mountain pasture, partially swallowed by vegetation and, as of the most recent attempt to find it, effectively lost.

The boulder is not especially large, measuring roughly 1.4 metres by 0.8 metres across its flat upper surface and standing about 1.2 metres high, yet what was recorded on that surface places it within one of prehistoric Ireland's most quietly compelling traditions. The carved motifs sit in a central position and combine areas of light and heavy pocking with short curvilinear grooves, the kind of abstract, non-figurative decoration that characterises Irish prehistoric rock art, a category of monument whose exact meaning and cultural context remain genuinely unresolved despite widespread study.

The boulder sits on the northern side of a disused roadway, at an elevation of around 156 metres above sea level, overlooking the Kealduff river valley on the Iveragh Peninsula. It was documented by A. Purcell in 1993 and included in the comprehensive archaeological survey of south Kerry compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan, published by Cork University Press in 1996. That survey catalogued rock art and other monuments across the peninsula with considerable care, but when a subsequent inspection team returned to this particular location, following the trackway to where the boulder should have been, the monument could not be found. It may be that vegetation has increased its cover, or that the slight variations in mountain terrain make relocating a single stone, without precise GPS coordinates, far more difficult than it sounds.

For anyone drawn to looking, the site is positioned just north of a trackway in rough mountain pasture above the Kealduff valley. The boulder's flat top and the carved motifs at its centre are what to look for, though the vegetation noted in the original description may have thickened further since. The honest expectation, given that a formal inspection failed to locate it, is that finding the stone would require patience and a degree of luck.

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