Caherkirky

Nearest town:
Dunmanway (9km W)
OS reference:
W3119548039
OS sheets:
86, 89
Latitude:
51° 40' 50.69 N
Longitude:
8° 59' 41.63 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Caherkirky (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by gjrk

The full monument grouping, looking southeast. The two quartz blocks are in the field fance just behind and between the boulder burials.

Image credit: Gordon Kingston
gjrk
gjrk Aug 3, 2008
Image of Caherkirky (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by gjrk

Looking roughly west. The huge standing stone, pressed tight against the eastern boulder burial, is aligned NE-SW. The western boulder is visible behind. Oh, that’s my distinctly non-archaeo builder’s level.

Image credit: Gordon Kingston
gjrk
gjrk Aug 3, 2008
Image of Caherkirky (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by gjrk

The western, larger, boulder burial.

Image credit: Gordon Kingston
gjrk
gjrk Aug 3, 2008
Image of Caherkirky (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by gjrk

The two quartz boulders, about four feet apart, are integrated in the field fence.

Image credit: Gordon Kingston
gjrk
gjrk Aug 3, 2008
Image of Caherkirky (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by gjrk

I’m starting to see these things in my dreams. Damn. The top of the stone.

Image credit: Gordon Kingston
gjrk
gjrk Aug 3, 2008
Image of Caherkirky (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by gjrk

The Carrigfadda mountain group, on the horizon, forms an eerie match to the top of the great monolith.

Image credit: Gordon Kingston
gjrk
gjrk Aug 3, 2008

Articles

Caherkirky

gjrk
gjrk Aug 7, 2008

This mini-complex is set in a gradually-sloping, west-facing field with what would have been a long view, blocked now by the adjacent fence, towards the full Carrigfadda range. It comprises two boulder burials, the smaller of which is closely attended by a massive, horned monolith; 2.7m high and 1.9m wide. The larger, western boulder, tightly embraced by hawthorn, rests on three supports. The Inventory refers to one visible support under the eastern cap, but this is now concealed by overgrowth from the fence.

The line of this wall, running tangentially between the two monuments, also incorporates an interlink of two quartz blocks. These need not necessarily be original features, but the presence of similar stones at several Argideen river sites – Letter, Templebryan, Carrigagrenane N, Lettergorman S and both Maulatanvally groups – does offer strong support to the proposal.

It’s also tempting, though highly speculative, to zoomorphise the suggestively-shaped pillar using later, local, bull-reference place-names as evidence. Certainly, the two extreme peaks of the Carrigfadda range, to the southwest, present an uncannily similar, horn-like appearance to the top of the roughly aligned stone.

Permission to visit this remarkable site can be obtained from the new house on the side of the road, at the north side of the field.

Archaeological Inventory of Cork, 1992; No.105, 30; No.260, 47.

Miscellaneous

Caherkirky
Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech
gjrk
gjrk Dec 13, 2008

‘They have made themselves an image of a bull-calf, they have prostrated themselves before it, sacrificed to it and said, “These are your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from Egypt.“‘
Exodus 32, 8.

‘Can brazen cymbals clashing, pipes with curving horns, trickery and magic have an effect so great…?‘
Ovid, Metamorphoses, Penguin, 1955, trans. Mary M. Innes, Book III; within 518-555.

‘When morning came, the men of Ireland saw the Donn Cuailnge coming westward past Cruachan with the mangled remains of Finnbennach hanging from his horns.
He brandished them before him all that day, and at nightfall entered the lake near Cruachan.‘
The Táin, translated from the Tain Bó Cuailgne by Thomas Kinsella, Oxford, 2002, 252.

Sites within 20km of Caherkirky

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