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CIIC 217. Whitefield III, Co. Kerry

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© 2016-05-12

National Monuments Service Record Number: KE057-107003-

Site Type

Souterrain

Description

Site

The souterrain, not marked on the OS maps, is locally reputed to have been located on the NW side of Baunclune House, but no surface trace of it remains.

Monument

1 of 4 stones (also CIIC 215, CIIC 216, CIIC 218) probably from a souterrain. According to Brash (1879, 190) it is a 'pillar of hard clay-slate', 0.99m x 0.23m x 0.02m (converted from Macalister 1945, 211). Macalister also notes that three 'crosses have been made on the faces of this stone; incompetently formed, in contrast to the general neatness of the inscription, and evidently by different or later hands'.

Text

'Inscribed on two angles [up-up]. The top of the stone is broken off, and with it has gone the end of the first line' (Macalister 1945, 211). As noted by Gippert, it is difficult to be certain of the C of Macalister's MAQI-REC at the very top of the stone. Only three scores, which would represent a T, are clear.

Transliteration

NOCATI MAQI MAQI-REṬ[  ̣  ̣ ?   ̣  ̣]/ MAQI MUCOI UDDAMI

Translation

Commentary

  • Gippert noted that a 'peculiar coincidence of two of the Whitefield stones, viz. this one and {216}, with the stone at Crickhowel, Brecknockshire {327}, as noted by Brash, is indeed striking: Here we have NOCATI as against DUNOCATI in {327} (and Windele who could not have known about {327} had read DUNOCATI in {217}), and in {216} we have MOSAC which we find in {327} again. Whether Windele was right in reading DU- can no longer be verified, given that the bottom of the stone was fixed in a wooden pedestal'.

Locations

Found

Found in a souterrain in the townland of Whitefield, barony of Dunkerron North. Exact coordinates unknown. (GPS coordinates, approximate location only -9.702644, 52.085442)

Original

Unknown

Last Recorded

National Museum of Ireland (NMI Ref. W.12), Dublin. The present location of this stone may be accessed via the National Monuments Service Historic Environment viewer on www.archaeology.ie. (GPS coordinates -6.254558,53.340408)

History of Recording

first mentioned, 1853 The MacGillicuddy. 'Four stones inscribed with Ogham writing were exhibited by The MacGillicuddy of the Reeks at the Dublin Exhibition of 1853, and were presented by him to the Royal Irish Academy in the following year' (Macalister 1945, 208). According to (Brash 1879, 190), this stone was found by J. Windele 'in the kitchen of a house belonging to the MacGillicuddy, on the townland of Whitefield', but 'the tenant could give no information as to where it came from; it was then used as a hearth-stone'. However, there may be confusion here with a possible fifth (since lost/broken up) ogham stone. Macalister (1945, 212) records that 'Hitchcock saw in the kitchen of Macgillicuddy an Ogham-inscribed stone used as a hearth-stone: MacGillicuddy professed to know no more about it than that it had been placed there by one of his ancestors. According to Windele's notebook (12 K 29) he promised in 1839 to have it taken out and put in a place of safety: but in the margin there is added the word `destroyed'. Hitchcock gives dimensions (4'5" x 1' 11" x 0'9") and a drawing...But the stone must surely have been different from the other four from this place'.

References

Websites and Online Databases

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