What is recorded here

Illaunloughan is a small island in Portmagee Channel where a circular hut stands beside an ecclesiastical enclosure. Its thin stone arcs and grey silt core suggest a modest dwelling built beside a sacred place, perhaps belonging to a keeper, hermit or seasonal worker. The completed excavation and later conservation preserve that unusual junction of domestic life and religious memory on a low-lying island barely a stone’s throw from the mainland.

National Monument No. 10001. Illaunloughan/Oileán Lócháin (KE087-036017-) is a small, low-lying island located in Portmagee Channel, c. 120m from the mainland at S and c. 400m WNW of Portmagee (Port Mhic Aoidh) village. The island stands in the civil parish of Killemlagh (Cill Imleach), in the barony of Iveragh (Uíbh Ráthach). According to Marshall and Walsh (1998, 102) 'There is no historical documentation for the island, and the origin of its name is uncertain. Lochán may be the name of a saint associated with the island, a theory supported by the mention of two Lochans in the Martyrology of Oengus, written c. AD 800 (Stokes 1984, 255, 263) and by the inland location of Killoughane (Cill Lócháin) ecclesiastical site [KE065-058001-] at the eastern end of the Iveragh peninsula (O'Sullivan and Sheehan 1996, 357). Alternatively the island name may be derived from the island of the chaff. Four seasons of archaeological work, carried out from 1992 to 1995, have completed the excavation of about 70 per cent of the island. On the W shore of Illaunloughan. Hut A which is one of two hut sites (see KE087-036015-) revealed in an excavation of the area. The remains of a circular hut site (diam. 3.8m) were defined by two concentric arcs of thin slabs set in an inner W-E and an outer N-E trench. The inner wall-face of an ecclesiastical enclosure (KE087-036017-) was incorporated into the outer arc of the hut site NW-N. Three large upright stones that remained in the outer trench along the N appear to have been used to revet a sod wall. The inner and outer arcs of slabs formed the kerbing for a core of grey silt. According to the excavators (White Marshall and Walsh 1998, 109), the construction is similar to that of the sod-walled structure, interpreted as a possible church (KE087-036016-), found beneath the upstanding drystone church (KE087-036008-). A rectangular stone-kerbed hearth was situated towards the centre of the interior. This hut site was conserved in 2001-2 (Marshall and Walsh 2005, 216-17). There is an adjoining hut site (KE087-036015-) immediately at S. (Marshall and Walsh 1998; 2005) This monument is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 (PO no. 1/1998). See attached plan taken from Marshall and Walsh 1998, Fig. 11.5 The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Kerry. Volume I: South-West Kerry' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2009). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Revised by: Caimin O'Brien Date of revised upload: 30 March 2022

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