What is recorded here

Cantra and Caheratrant lost their cairns before human memory, but Ventry strand kept several small carns visible in 1841. They sat at the eastern edge like markers for a battle nobody ordinary could prove. The bones found nearby belonged, in local story, to the slain of Ventry, and the stones may have been their answer: a boundary drawn against forgetting.

‘Several small carns' were visible at the E extremity of Ventry strand, near Ventry village, in 1841 (OSL). Human bones were also found at this E end of the strand and these were locally believed to be the bones of those slain in the legendary Battle of Ventry. Westropp (1910, 275) was also informed that 'crowds of small cairns and burial mounds lay at Cantra'. Two 'Heaps of Stone' were marked on the 1st edition of the OS map a little NW of Ventry village but these were apparently not the cairns in question (OSM). Other cairns and mounds have been recorded in Caheratrant, on the W side of Ventry Harbour, but there is now no trace of any of these features. The above description is derived from J. Cuppage, ‘Corca Dhuibhne. Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey. Ballyferriter. Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne’ (1986), no. 232. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 4 August 2013

A local battle near Ventry, possibly involving early medieval or Iron Age combatants, occurred at or near Cairn in Ceann Trá; human remains found in the area suggest conflict, though the exact date and outcome are unclear, and wider significance is not recorded.

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