Rock art, Kealduff, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
In a patch of boggy pasture near a watercourse in Kealduff, Co. Kerry, a substantial boulder sits in sheep-grazed ground carrying marks that were made thousands of years ago and are still quietly legible today.
The boulder measures roughly 1.6 metres east to west and approximately 3 metres north to south, rising to a maximum height of 1.6 metres. What makes it notable is not its size but what has been worked into its surface: two cup-and-ring carvings, the kind of prehistoric motif found across Atlantic Europe and consisting of a central circular depression, or cup, surrounded by one or more concentric rings sometimes interrupted by a radial groove running outward from the centre. One sits on the south-facing upper surface at the boulder's southern extent, with possible traces of a second ring and a possible radial groove. The other appears on the east-facing upper surface toward the northern end, with a diameter of around 12 centimetres.
The full extent of the carving on this boulder almost certainly remains unknown. When the site was examined in May 2021, no additional rock art could be confirmed on the largely rugged surface, but surveyors considered it highly probable that further motifs are present and simply unrecorded as yet. The rough texture of the stone makes systematic inspection difficult, and cup-and-ring carvings, being shallow and weathered, can easily escape notice on an uneven surface in poor light. The two confirmed motifs represent, in that sense, a minimum rather than a complete inventory.