Cairn, Kilkeehagh, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Cairns

Cairn, Kilkeehagh, Co. Kerry

On a spur running north-west from Drung Hill in County Kerry, a low, quartz-scattered cairn sits astride a parish boundary as though it belongs to neither side and both at once.

The monument is roughly circular, about 30 metres across but barely a metre tall, its loose stones spread wide and low across the hillside. What lifts it out of the ordinary is what stands on top: an ogham stone, ogham being the early medieval Irish script in which letters are encoded as groups of notches and strokes cut along the edge of a stone, set on a small rectangular platform slightly off-centre on the cairn. The stone is just over a metre high, and on its north-east angle a damaged inscription survives. R. A. S. Macalister, who recorded it in 1945, read the legible fragment as MAQI R, suggesting the beginning of a formula meaning "son of", common in ogham memorial stones, and postulated the word RECTA following. Much of the inscription has spalled away, taking the full reading with it. On the east face, a small cross enclosed in a circle was also cut into the stone at some point, layering Christian use over what was already there.

The place goes by two names, Leacht Fhiondin and Leacht an Daimh, a leacht being a cairn or burial mound associated with a saint or holy figure, often used as a station in penitential pilgrimage. Local tradition holds that St Finan and his dog are buried beneath the stones, though a competing story identifies the cairn as the burial place of Sgeolmhaidhe, one of Fionn Mac Cumhaill's hounds. A holy well dedicated to St Finan lies nearby. Every year on the last Sunday of July, known as Domhnach na dTuras, the site served as the focal point of a pilgrimage and assembly to Drung Hill, drawing people from the surrounding parishes of Killinane and Glenbeigh. That gathering had ceased by the early twentieth century, leaving the cairn to its hill and its unresolved inscriptions, with Dingle Bay visible to the north and the valleys of the Ferta and Carhan rivers opening to the west.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Cairn, Kilkeehagh, Co. Kerry. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 50 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.