Archaeology

Ceannlínte ó Baile Bhuirne! (Headlines from Ballyvourney!)

It was a big day in Ballvourney yesterday: the public unveiling of two replicas of the 800 year old wooden figure that has been central to observances of St Gobnait on her day for as long as anyone can remember – we must be talking centuries! If you are not familiar with St Gobnait – or her celebrations – read my post here.

It’s actually St Gobnait’s Day today: the eleventh of February. As I write this, the congregation in the saint’s church will be venerating the 13th century wooden figure by ‘measuring’ her with ribbons. But also, for the first time, they will be able to view the two copies of that figure which have been made over the last few months. That exercise has been undertaken so that the figure itself could be fully studied because it is of great historical interest. There are other medieval carved wooden figures of saints surviving elsewhere in Ireland, but this is the only one that is still in regular active use.

. . . A medieval wooden image of Gobnait, kept traditionally in a drawer in the church during the year, is venerated in the parish church on this day. The devotion is known as the tomhas Gobnatan . People bring a ribbon with them and ‘measure’ the statue from top to bottom and around its circumference. This ribbon is then brought home and is used when people get sick or for some special blessing. The statue is thought to belong to the 13th c. A second pattern in honour of Gobnait was traditionally celebrated in Baile Bhúirne at Whit . . .

The above citation is taken from The Diocese of Kerry website, which sets out a comprehensive review of the saint and the activities which honour her. Here’s the measuring taking place a few years ago:

National Heritage Week 2023 explains the purpose of the project to replicate the carving:

. . . As patron saint of the parish, the statue provides a tangible link to the saint but importantly represents the long-standing living devotion to Gobnait. The wooden figure carved out of oak clearly depicts a female monastic. It was guarded over the centuries by the O’Herlihy clan, who were the ruling Gaelic lords of the Ballyvourney area during the medieval and late-medieval periods. It remained in the safe-keeping of members of the O’Herlihy family until they handed it over to the local parish priest in the late-19th century and it has been protected and kept secure by the Ballyvourney Church Committee ever since. The 3D project will comprise the digital scanning of the statue which in turn will enable a 3D generated wooden print out. A second replica will be hand carved as an integrative representation of how the statue would have looked originally before the centuries aged and tarnished it. The replicas will then be placed permanently on display in the Parish Church with information signage . . .

St Gobnait in 3D

Above is a view of the original carving (in the centre) with the replica of that on the right. On the left is the ‘integrative representation’ – that is the carver’s interpretation of what the figure might have looked like when she first saw the light of day in the 1300s. On the left is Bishop William Crean – Bishop of Cloyne since 2013: he presided over the unveiling of the two replicas yesterday. On the right is John Hayes, of Special Branch Carvers in Fenor, Co Waterford. He was responsible for the carving project and has made an excellent job!

John gave us a presentation yesterday, after the unveiling ceremony, and we learned how he closely examined the original statue, taking detailed measurements and a full photographic survey. This enabled a Sketchfab 3D rendering to be produced: this became the basis for his work. During the examination he was able to find traces of paint, which enabled him to render the interpretative version with – very likely – a high degree of fidelity to the original.

I got the chance to talk to John and ask him about the timbers used for the original and the replicas. The original is of oak, and we don’t have a way of knowing where this came from. The replicas are of ash: this is a good material for stability and longevity. John had access to a good source of seasoned wood.

The day was a study day for St Gobnait, and encompassed a whole lot more than the unveiling of the replicas (they are waiting under the cloth- above – to be revealed)! Note the currach in the pic also: that’s another project – to establish a Camino tracing the route which Gobnait took as she travelled around Ireland from the Co Galway Aran Island of Inisheer, having been told by an angel that her life would be fulfilled when she saw nine white deer. She spent time in Dun Chaoin and Kilgobinet in Kerry, Ballyagran in Limerick, Kilgobinet in Waterford, and Abbeyswell and Clondrohid in Cork, before finally finding the deer in Ballyvourney. You can see those deer on the stern of the currach, above. There are at least eight holy wells in Ireland dedicated to the saint. Amanda has written extensively about Gobnait’s travels and – of course – about her wells.

There was also an excellent series of talks about Gobnait. Events took place in Ionad Cultúrtha an Dochtúir Ó Loinsigh, which is a great facility in the community. Here we are – together with our good friends Peter and Amanda (you have met them frequently on the pages of this Journal), - waiting for proceedings to begin:

This is the moment of unveiling: the Bishop is accompanied by the Parish Priest – Very Reverend John McCarthy SP – and archaeologist Dr Connie Kelleher, National Monuments Service: she has played a significant role in this Ballyvourney project.

The decoration on the hull of the Camino Currach is based on the depiction of Saint Gobnait in the Harry Clarke window from the Honan Chapel, UCC. The bee image on the right reminds us that Gobnait is the patron saint of bees and beekepers. We enjoyed a comprehensive talk on bees by Peadar Ó Riada – who has first hand experience of the subject:

There were many more dimensions to the day. One of my favourites was when the audience was requested to produce anyone named Gobnait to be photographed with the carved figures. That included the variations of the name: Library Ireland (1923) (Rev Patrick Woulfe) gives these as Gobinet, Gobnet, Gubby, Abigail, Abbey, Abbie, Abina, Deborah, Debbie, and Webbie. Ten candidates stood up to be counted:

Thank you to Finola for providing many of these photos

Rock Art 3D

There’s a concentration of prehistoric rock art around Castletownshend and I am currently writing a paper about that for the next issue of the Journal of the Skibbereen and District Historical Society. There are seven individual pieces of rock art: as part of the research I recently visited the one stone I hadn’t seen yet. Fortunately, we had the company and assistance of Conor Buckley of Gormú Adventures (been on one of his marvellous walks yet? If not, try this one, or this one or this one.) who, as a native of the area, knows everyone and introduced us to the landowner, the genial Bill O’Driscoll.

The townland is Farrandeligeen – isn’t that a wonderful name? A dealg is a spine or thorn or prickle, and therefore a deilgín is a small one of those. So it can be translated as the Land of the Thorns, which can be blackberries or blackthorns – and this being West Cork, probably both. An old saying is Is beag an dealga dhéanfadh braon – the tiniest thorn can cause big problems. Thorn in a hiking boot, anyone?

The land lived up to its name. Bill took us to where he knew the rock art was, and that’s when we encountered the deligeen bit. Fortunately he had a stout fork with him, and took to hacking and bashing his way through the thorns, while we stood back and offered encouragement. The first place proved unfruitful and he moved a few metres away and soon struck gold. Among the brambles, earth, gorse and general undergrowth there was a hint of something white. This turned out to be a bag filled with stones – the very bag he had put there to remind him that this is where the rock art was – but so many years ago that it had slipped his mind until now.

And so the stone gradually came into view until I could finally get down to clearing it off with my gloves. (I was sorry I hadn’t brought the red socks.) This stone is already in the National Monuments Records as a ‘Cupmarked Stone’ (CO151-013) and is described as having ‘at least ten cupmarks’. Bill told us that his father had said he remembered the stone standing upright – it had fallen to its present position flat on the ground since his father’s time.

For more on what a cupmarked stone is, and how it fits in to the general category of ‘Rock Art’, see my post The Complex Cupmark. For now, quoting from that post:

The cupmark is the most basic and numerous element or motif of rock art in Ireland and elsewhere. In the examples labelled rock art in County Cork, they occur with other motifs, principally concentric rings, sometimes with radial grooves, and a variety of curved or straight lines. They can be incorporated within a motif (as in cup-and-ring marks, rosettes, or where enclosed by lines) or they may be scattered, seemingly randomly, over the surface of the rock, between and among the other motifs. 

. . . patterns of straight lines, or of rough circles or semi-circles, can be made out in several of the stones we have recorded to date.

Rock art is widespread across the Atlantic coast of Europe and is believed to date from the Neolithic, about 5,000 years ago. The cupmark as a motif, however, continued well into the Bronze Age, since we find it on wedge tombs and boulder burials. We do not know what the significance of the cupmark is, but it must have held a special meaning to the carvers since it persisted over time and space.

We got the rock cleared enough to identify the cupmarks and I put a button in each one to make sure it showed up – sorry, those are not gold coins. Some of the cupmarks are tiny. You can look at the cupmarks as a random scatter, or as in the quote above, you can see two groups, in which a cupmark is surrounded by a semicircle of four others. 

It was hard to get the rock clean enough to see detail so I decided to carry out a photogrammetric survey, the object of which is to end up with a 3D image from 2D photographs. That involves taking LOTS of photos (in this case, 100) of the stone, working my way systematically across the surface of the stone at three different levels, keeping the camera settings consistent.

Conor had his drone with him – a new experience for us! He took photos and videos of the stone in its general location, capturing me doing the photogrammetry and also a good indication of the amount of undergrowth that had to be cleared out of the way before the rock came into view. (Thank you, Bill!)

I sent the photographs off to UCC, to the Department of Archaeology, where Nick Hogan generously processed them for me, using the Department’s specialised software. The results are fascinating!

First of all, it looks like there are more than just cupmarks on this rock. A long line stretches from the far left (in this image) cupmark to the right hand grouping. There is a hint of a circle around the bottom left cupmark. The three large cupmarks in the right grouping appear to be conjoined, and there is a line from from the far right cupmark to the end of the stone.

You can view the render in what is called Matcap, which creates it in a metallic view (above and below). On a grey day with no shadows, and still lots of mud on the stone, none of this was obvious to the naked eye. There is a possibility that these new elements, rather than being carved, are natural contours in the rock itself. We haven’t had time yet to go back and check this out more carefully, but we will have to do so – and update this post! If indeed the lines turn out to be carved, that fact will elevate the rock from a Cupmarked Stone to Rock Art. Watch this space.

If you’d like to see the 3D render for yourself and have fun turning it this way and that, you can click here. Let me know if you spot anything else! It was good to be out in the field again after a long winter of cold wet weather. It was great to have Conor and his drone along and to meet Bill, who is committed to keeping safe this precious part of our heritage.

Rock Art and Winter Light at Derrynablaha

Rock art can be astounding or underwhelming. What makes it one or the other is light.

This is the rock I labelled Derrynablaha 3. My 1973 drawing of it is below. From it, there’s a clear view across to Lough Brin to the east, and all the way down the Kealduff River.

Irish prehistoric rock art likely dates from the Neolithic, about 5,000 years ago. We’ve written extensively about rock art (and indeed about Derrynablaha) – see all our posts on this special menu page. There are significant concentrations in Kerry, including 49 pieces identified so far in the adjoining townlands of Derrynablaha and Derreeny, in the middle of the Iveragh Peninsula. To get there, turn north from the Blackwater Bridge and head for the Ballaghbeama Gap.

If you go on a grey day with no shadows (all too common in our part of the world), or even when the sun is high in the heavens, you might see nothing at all. You might walk right by a piece of rock art without realising it was there. We visited Derrynablaha this week and were very lucky to hit it just right.

By ‘just right’ I mean that we had a sunny day, not a cloud to be seen, and because it’s winter and we got there earlyish in the morning the sun was low in the sky. That kind of low, raking light creates the best possible natural conditions for viewing rock art, as demonstrated in this post – Aoibheann Lambe’s excellent capture shows how to do it. There are other ways to do it, of course – you can use strategically placed coordinated flashes – something Ken Williams is rightly famous for. You can go at night with strong lights, or you can use photogrammetry to produce a 3D image. But for a truly immersive experience, seeing it on a day like we had is an experience that is hard to beat.

I spent time recording all the known Derrynablaha rock art when I was doing my thesis in archaeology at UCC in 1972. The carvings had been discovered by the landowner, Daniel O’Sullivan, who wrote to the Department of Archaeology in 1962. His brother, John, still lived on the farm when I was doing my fieldwork, in the farmhouse that is now a ruin (above) but which still holds happy memories for me. The remains of a more ancient settlement are also clearly visible (below).

They were visited by the Italian archaeologist Emmanuel Anati the following year, 1963, at Prof O’Kelly’s suggestion and it was Anati who first wrote about this site. Anati, by the way, went on to found a centre for rock art research at Val Camonica in Italy, and as far as I can tell is still alive and active, in his 90s. He recorded 15 panels.

This is my Derrynablaha 4

Subsequent expeditions from UCC, and my own explorations, resulted in a grand total of 23 examples being included in my thesis. By the time of the Kerry Archaeological survey in the 1980s there were 26 pieces identified, and more have been found since then – there are now 29 known panels of rock art in Derrynablaha and a further 20 in Derreeny.

A detail from Derrynablaha 4 clearly showing individual pick marks. The decoration was picked on using stone-on-stone percussion. You can also see how ice can settle on the surface and over time cause cracking damage. My drawing of this stone is below

They are very hard to find unless you know exactly where to go, and I was very lucky indeed to have the expert guidance of Google. Yes – there is a Google Map devoted to Irish rock art! It’s the brainchild of Caimin O’Brien of the National Monuments Service and with it on your phone it’s possible to tramp over the hillsides and locate each piece. We are supremely grateful to Caimin for the work he has done on this, and we only wish all National Monuments could get the same treatment!

Even with this amazing resource, this is not an easy field trip. The ground is steep, rough and wet, and there are barbed wire fences to find a way around. It’s an active sheep pasture, so it’s important to be mindful that you are on private property and be respectful of all farm boundaries. 

This is a good example of rock art that could be easily overlooked. A very faint cup-and-ring can be seen in good light conditions. The obvious hole, however, is not a cupmark but a naturally occurring solution pit

Because we only had half a day, we confined our walk to the area around the old farmhouse and the hillside to the west of it, and managed to visit 8 panels. Even in the perfect lighting conditions we had, not all are easy to see, as they have been exposed for thousands of years and have worn away. But, for the most part, once we had found the rock, we could see the carvings clearly. 

All the panels we viewed had cupmarks and cup-and-ring marks, as well as some pecked lines meandering across the surface. We don’t know what the significance of these motifs are, although theories abound. There are other motifs at Derrynablaha too, all falling within the repertoire of classic rock art. 

Our companions on this day, as on so many of our adventures, were Amanda and Peter of Holy Wells of Cork and Kerry. And of course several holy wells were on the agenda too, including this one near Kenmare. Take a look at Amanda’s brief write up on her Facebook page, or keep an eye on her excellent blog for more about our finds on this trip.

We’ve written about Derrynablaha so many times now – why do I know this won’t be the last time?

Back to Borlin Valley

We have certainly travelled this route many times – it’s our favourite way of getting from Kenmare home to West Cork. Assuredly not a direct road, but spectacular – and you’ll hardly see a soul. Here’s a map – the road is in red:

And here (below) – a sculptural abstract – is the nature of the terrain which the satellites spy on – looking straight down!

We passed over this high road that skirts the valley on an idyllic January day early in the new year (2024). For the first time, we also traversed the full length of the lane that goes into the heart of the vale, only serving scattered houses and farms. This goes by a complex stone circle and Mass Rock in the townland of Derrynafinchin – or Doire na Fuinseann. The group – also featured on the header – has been fully described by Amanda’s post Derrynafinchin: a bullaun, Mass rock & stone circle from a couple of years ago. Well worth a read!

The little lane also passes into the townland of Derreencollig. We were intrigued by some kinetic sculptures we found beside the way: we did not come across the artist, nor anyone else on this part of the journey.

The views into this remote townland and its few habitations is seen from the minor road that follows the contour at high level, heading for Bantry.

If you find our minor roads tricky, then stick to the main ones. But, if you are not in a hurry, you couldn’t do better on a day of winter sunshine than to traverse the gentler, secret ways.

Description is hardly needed in this little topographical diversion. I’m not sure where else in the world you could find your senses as satiated as here in West Cork (and Kerry!). Travel on!

To my mind there’s no more satisfying way of journeying: keep to the crags and cornices of the high tracks.

Walking with Stones – Your Christmas Present Solved!

If you live in West Cork, or if you love to visit it, your Christmas present dilemma is solved! Here comes Walking With Stones, the new book on West Cork archaeological sites written by David Myler.

David has been sharing his passion for West Cork antiquities in an online Facebook Page/blog which he called Walking with Stones. But even before that, he wrote An Archaeological Survey of the Mealagh Valley – a book we have had on our bookshelves for years and turned to often. 

Once we saw Walking With Stones pop up on our Facebook feed, we knew we had found a fellow traveller. We had to meet – and meet we did, along the way discovering many shared interests and even a relative in common. Our first meeting was a field trip where David showed us this stunning stone row in the Mealagh Valley.

On that same trip we saw my first ever Four-Poster Monument – they are very rare, with only four in West Cork – as well as a spectacularly-sited wedge tomb that David had discovered.

David’s book is a very welcome addition to our bookshelf. Perhaps I should declare right away that he asked me to write the Introduction and I was delighted to do so. Now that I finally have my own copy, I am thrilled to be associated with it, in this small way.

David’s favourite companions on his walks are his kids and one of the real strengths of this book is the sense that all these places can be enjoyed with family. Having young people along, with their curiosity, their need to really explore, and their chatter, brightens any walk. Just make sure you go equipped with food and bandaids. What follows are a few photos of joint field trips we have taken with them.

The only comparable book we can think of is Jack Roberts’ Exploring West Cork, first published in the 1980s and updated and re-published a couple of times. We treasure all of Jack’s books, especially for their marvellous black-and-white drawings, as accurate as they are charming.

While Jack tried to be fairly comprehensive in his coverage, David’s selection is personal – this does not pretend to be a gazetteer, but a guide and companion. Many of the sites have been chosen because they are accessible and can be enjoyed as part of a good walk through the countryside. Restricting the number of sites also allows David to write more about each one and use his own photographs to illustrate important features.

The best place to have David’s book is in your car, your bicycle carrier, or your backpack. You can buy it online here or here.  Look out for it in local bookstores, if you live in West Cork – David is doing the legwork now of getting copies to them.

Congratulations, David! Given that you work full time and have a family to look after, this is an amazing accomplishment and one we are all grateful for.

Cashels in Kerry 4: Staigue

Our last, and most magnificent, cashel in this series is Staigue. Majestic, imposing and mysterious, it sits at the head of a long valley with views down to the sea, almost 4kms away.

Staigue is the one that has never been excavated, and so it is the one that we can project our own speculations on regarding its age, its function, and its association with the fairies.

The thing that distinguishes Staigue from the other Cashels in Kerry I have written about so far is its sheer size. It’s what provokes awe. The first to write about it, in 1821, was the then-landowner F C Bland, who said:

When the appearance of the country, which is barren and uninviting, is considered, it must create surprise, what could have been the inducement to erect such a structure in such a place; and, when the  traveller, whose curiosity has supported him through a long journey, the latter part of which for ten or twelve miles has been through a wild, uncultivated, though not an uninteresting country, first approaches it, he experiences a sensation of disappointment. For it stands a single object on a hill, and from its figure (being round) producing but little effect of light and shade; and, having no familiar object by which to measure its magnitude, and its importance being rather diminished by the extent and desolation of the surrounding scenery, he attaches a meaner opinion to it than it deserves. But when he enters it, he is struck with astonishment; and his imagination almost instantly transports him to distant ages lost in remote antiquity. He vainly endeavours to figure, in his “mind’s eye,” the beings who erected it, their manners, habits, and costume; until, “lost and bewildered in the fruitless search,” his mind returns to sober investigation, again to lapse into conjecture. This effect is not lost by familiarity:—I have visited it a hundred times, and have always experienced the same sensation.

Description of a remarkable Building, on the north side of Kenmare river commonly called Staigue Fort. Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol XIV, Dublin, 1825

I know how he felt. Bland did a series of measurements and drawings of the fort, and they provide a charming antiquarian look at how it was 200 years ago, when it had been in use as a cattle pound. That’s one of his drawing at the head of this post. Here’s another.

But his account is more than charming – it provides an indication of how the fort looked at that time (even though the drawings are not exactly accurate). This is important because we need to know what interventions have been made over the years to the fort – interventions that can significantly altar the profile and appearance of the fort, as we have seen in the other three. For example, he referred to an ‘eve stone’ a term that is unfamiliar to me, and said:

In one part, where the wall is perfect, it is surmounted  by a projecting eve stone, which, when complete, must have added greatly to the effect of the whole. This is indeed the only attempt at ornament in the entire building.

His own drawing do not show any special feature and whatever it was, no really obvious eve stone has survived the two centuries since he wrote this account. However, the National Monuments record does state The rampart stands to a maximum external height of 5.7m at N, where both Bland and Dunraven noted a number of coping stones projecting slightly over its inner wall-face (1825, 18-19; 1875, 24). Two of these remain in situ, and average 1m x .4m x .08m thick. Perhaps I need to go back and take a closer look.

The good news is that, of all the cashels we have examined so far in this series, Staigue seems to have remained most true to its original state. That is not to say it is identical to how it was 200 years ago – it has been tidied and stabilised, although when and by whom remains uncertain. There is a suggestion that Bland himself employed local workmen to do some restoration work, and another that the OPW did some in the 19th century. 

While no records of these works remain, overall, the fort looks similar now to the older images we have of it. Historic edifices like Staigue cannot be left to crumble if significant numbers of people are visiting it. Sooner or later, as people climb on the walls, knocking off stones, it will deteriorate, creating a safety hazard and a dangerous situation for the monument itself. 

The trick is to intervene as sensitively as possible while still providing safe access and I would say that this has been done well at Staigue, although readers may want to weigh on on this question. The photos above and below are from the Irish Tourist Board collection (used in compliance with their Creative Commons License) – they amply demonstrate that climbing on the walls was as irresistible in 1964 as it is now. The ditch around the fort is also quite obvious in the aerial photo.

In essence, Staigue is similar to the other Cashels, with massive walls, two internal rooms or ‘cells’ in the walls, an entrance through the walls on the south side, and sets of stairs giving access to the top of the walls.

The stairs – the Irish word staighre (pronounced sty-rah) may have given the cashel its name – are the most striking feature. Commonly referred to a X-pattern, the first set lead up to a flat ‘landing’ from where the next set take off in both directions. You can see this really well in this 3D model of Staigue done by The Discovery Program. The image below is a still from the model – click here to go to it – it’s fun to manipulate it for yourself.

The entrance, surmounted by not one but two massive lintels, leads through the south wall, with a slightly inclined profile. The walls is lowest at this point. 

The two mural chambers are to the left of the entrance and opposite it. Their use is unclear, but they may have functioned, like souterrains, as cold storage for food.

We do not know what buildings may have been inside the fort, although, as we saw in the other three, it was common for these cashels to have houses, whether for dwelling or for ceremonial use (as at Cahergal) or both. It is highly likely that any future excavation of Staigue would reveal similar constructions. The OPW sign (extract below) makes that assumption and says The fort was the home of the chieftain’s family, guards and servants, and would have been full of houses, out-buildings, and possibly tents or other temporary structures.

You remember our old friend General Vallancey from Beranger’s West Cork? In that post I told you that he was an antiquarian of the fanciful sort – forever banging on about druids and Chaldeans and coming up with far-fetched theories. In fact he pronounced Staigue to be a Phoenician amphitheatre! Perhaps Bland’s romantic illustration, below, put him in mind of such an interpretation.

Westropp, one of whose main activities was bringing common sense to antiquarian discourse, in a series on forts written between 1896 and 1901, situated Staigue very much in line with other stone forts on the Western seaboard. The photograph below is from that series. He acknowledges the defensive nature of the huge walls, but declined to use what he saw as the simplistic term “fortress”.

As for their use as cattle pens (as Bland had suggested), he says:

It was, however, not unusual to keep the cattle in the residential fort; we find this in legend, as in the case of the cattle of Iuchna the curly-haired, and in that story, so often quoted, of the three forts of Ventry. What is stronger evidence is that the ancient laws of Ireland made provision for seizing cattle kept in forts, and even for keeping them impounded therein on dark nights. That this extended to later times we have seen in the fort-names Cahernagree, Lisnagry, &c., and perhaps even in the “pounds” of Dartmoor and the local name for Staigue fort “Pounda-na-Staigue.”


The Ancient Forts of Ireland: Being a Contribution towards Our Knowledge of Their Types, Affinities, and Structural Features. (Plates LII. to LIX.). Author(s): Thomas Johnson Westropp Source: The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, 1896/1901, Vol. 31 (1896/1901)

Westropp saw these forts as having multiple uses, much as Con Manning did more recently – places of assembly, of ceremony, and, if a dwelling, that of a high status individual. Indeed the command of resources it would have taken to build Staigue is staggering. The fact that it was surrounded by an outside ditch (no longer very obvious) might also add to its indentification as defensive. The photo below is from a 1950 piece by Angus Graham (Some Illustrated Notes from Kerry, in
The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 81, No. 2 (1951), pp. 139-145)

We have seen that the three other Kerry Cashels have been dated to the Early Medieval and Medieval period: Leacanabuaile to the 9th and 10th centuries, Cahergal in use between the 7th and 9th centuries and again during the 11th and 14th, and Loher from 400 to 1600. It is puzzling therefore, that the OPW sign at the fort assigns a likely date of the early centuries AD before Christianity came to Ireland. In other words, the Iron Age. This assertion, of an Iron Age date, is repeated in various online sources about Staigue (including an even more vaguely worded reference to “during the Celtic Period.”). There is no evidence that Staigue was built significantly earlier than the other Kerry Cashels. In all likelihood, it belongs in the same medieval tradition of cashel-building.

If you get to Kerry, go visit all four of these remarkable testaments to our past. You will find yourself wondering at the context in which they were built, and the complex and highly stratified society in which resources could be marshalled to build something that would serve to remind all who saw it, who’s in charge here!

All four posts in this series can be found here.