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Ballycahill Bullaun Stone


Some exciting news with the adding of a previously unrecorded bullaun stone to the Sites & Monuments Record.
I recently met local Nenagh man Tom White for a quick archaeology tour in North Tipp. Tom has a great interest in history and archaeology in the area (and further afield). However I think his real love is woodcraft and survivalism making use of the natural world around him to provide wild food, shelter, fire and water. He runs a great facebook page here. (Give his page a like, it is worth following for the great tips he gives). As such he is often out and about visiting various archaeological sites, walking the hills and has a great interest in ring-forts.
We visited a couple of interesting megalithic and natural sites around North Tipp and had a good chat about the local archaeological sites in general. We got to discussing "cursing stones" and he mentioned that there was one that he visited regularly near Capparoe outside Nenagh. The "cursing stone" was made up of smooth rounded stones and a bowl in a large rock. When I heard this I thought immediately of a missing bullaun stone in this area.
The description in the archaeological inventory was as follows "Situated on a low rise of ground in undulating countryside. A disused holy well (TN020-085001) was filled in in the late 1970s and described by a local landowner as a natural spring well with a flagstone surround and a possible bullaun stone. There is no trace of the bullaun stone (FitzPatrick 1985b, 112)." This comes from an unpublished work by Elizabeth Fitzpatrick "An archaeological survey of holy wells in the baronies of Arra and Owney, Upper and Lower Ormond."
Tom took me to the location of the "cursing stone" which is less than 500m from where the holy-well above was located. What is interesting is that it is known locally as a mass-rock and a dawn mass is held here in the past. There was a significant abbey just over 1km away from the bullaun stone and it is possible that it is linked to that settlement.


We contacted the local National Monuments Service archaeologist about this rediscovery and he was delighted to hear and visited the next day. Interestingly he thinks that it is not in fact the missing bullaun stone as I thought but a completely different unrecorded site. It is now recorded as follows:

"In grassland, situated atop ridge running E-W in upland area with good views of the surrounding countryside from W through N to NNE. Ruins of Lissenhall House located 100m to S. Spring well known as the vaulted well (TN020-100----) 270m to NNE. Holy well known as Patrick’s Well (TN020-085001-) located 340m to NE. Roughly rectangular shaped boulder (H 0.78m-0.5m x 0.97m x 1m) the surface of which slopes upwards from E to W. A deep circular hollow or bowl (top diam. 0.27m; base diam. 0.12m; D 0.14m) is located off centre close to W edge of stone. Nine smooth water-rolled stones (dam. 0.1-0.2m) have been placed into the bowl of the bullaun. The remains of two shallow circular depressions (diam. 0.16m; 0.2m) can be seen on the surface of the boulder close to the E edge. According to the ITA Survey carried out in the 1940s, this bullaun stone was used as a mass rock during penal times and was known locally as ‘Ballycahill Mass Rock’ (pers. comm. Derek Ryan). The ITA described the site as following: ‘By an old whitethorn bush, on the rim of a semi circular depression in the ground, is a roughly built table of large stones. One huge stone on top has a circular bowl-shaped depression about a foot (0.3m) in diameter which is said to have been used as a Holy water font’.
Lissenhall school recorded in the 1930s the following folklore about the locality which appears to be describing this bullaun stone; ‘On the tops of several large stones here there are small holes which fill with water. People who have warts rub them with this water are cured. The holes are known as wart wells. It is said that mass was offered on these stones in Penal days & that the holes were holy water fonts’ (The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0537, Page 302)."

So I think we can all agree of how important local knowledge is in the recording of old sites and protection of new ones.
Many assume that a site is know about to "the archaeologists". Thanks to Tom White for involving me in his discovery and I'm very hopeful that we may be able to find a few more sites together.










Comments

  1. Finola Finlay11 June 2016 at 19:22

    Great find! Got to be a cursing too with those pebbles.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Derek Ryan12 June 2016 at 12:19

    Ya for sure. They look much too smooth to have ended up there by accident.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jane Brideson14 June 2016 at 08:48

    Great blog Derek - what a wonderful discovery!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Freespiral30 December 2016 at 18:29

    Fantastic, what a fascinating monument

    ReplyDelete

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