Site of Church, Mám An Óraigh, Co. Kerry

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Site of Church, Mám An Óraigh, Co. Kerry

On the southern slopes of Lateevemore, overlooking Ventry Harbour on the Dingle Peninsula, a small Early Christian enclosure holds an unusual concentration of inscribed stones, ruined foundations, and quietly puzzling features, many of them gathered into a space no larger than a modest farmyard.

What makes the site particularly odd is an ogham stone, a large irregularly-shaped boulder near the south-eastern edge of the enclosure, whose inscription is, by scholarly consensus, confused and possibly the result of errors made during its own carving. Ogham is an early medieval script used primarily in Ireland, in which letters are represented by notches and strokes cut along a stem line, typically used for short commemorative inscriptions. Here, the stem line runs up the left side of the stone's face and across the top, framing two carved crosses below it. The most likely reading, proposed by R. A. S. Macalister in 1945, is ANM COLMAN AILITHIR, meaning roughly "the name of Colman the Pilgrim", though Macalister himself acknowledged that the inscription's peculiarities required an ingenious explanation.

The site, known as Kilcolman or Cill na gColmán, is associated with St. Colman and sits within a roughly circular enclosure with a terraced interior. The visible remains are layered and various: rectangular structural foundations measuring 7.2 metres by 3 metres on the western side of the enclosure, a stone and earth mound of unknown origin directly to the north of these, a circular foundation abutting the southern bank, and graves confined largely to the south-western quadrant and marked by low mounds, upright stones, and prostrate slabs. Piles of quartz pebbles in the north-eastern area suggest that part of the site was reused for calluragh burials, a term referring to the informal interment of unbaptised infants or others excluded from consecrated ground, a practice once widespread across Ireland. Three bullaun stones, rounded rocks with deliberately hollowed depressions that are often associated with Early Christian sites and sometimes used in healing or cursing traditions, have been collected from various parts of the enclosure and placed in front of the ogham stone. A cross-inscribed stone is set into a lane wall just to the north, suggesting the sacred character of the site extended beyond its formal boundary.

About 80 metres south of the enclosure, three springs emerge from the ground and are almost certainly the holy well once dedicated to St. Brendan. According to one account, organised pilgrimages to the well had ceased by the early nineteenth century, though a later observer noted that rounds, the traditional circuit of prayer made at such sites, were still being performed.

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