Kilgobnet Church (in Ruins) — Kilgobnet

Kilgobnet Church/Cill Ghobnait. This site is located a short distance SE of Kilgobnet village, midway between Macgillycuddy's Reeks and the Laune river. A pattern was formerly held here on St Gobnet's Day, February 11th (OSNB Knockane, 155), and the village is reputed in local tradition to be the original home of the Lughnasa assembly now held in Killorglin and known as Puck Fair (MacNeill 1962, 299). The site is located in a large field, marked 'Fair Green' on the first edition of the OS map, and it formerly comprised a poorly preserved church, two circular 'cells' and a possible ogham stone. Of these features only the ruined church now remains. Church: The ivy-clad remains of this rectangular structure, which is probably Medieval in date, measure10.7m E-W x 5.1m N-S internally. Large amounts of stone collapse occur in its interior and outside its E gable. The roughly coursed, rubble-built walls, 1.1m wide and surviving to an average external height of 1.8m, are set in a loose sandy mortar. The remains of a doorway, c. .9m wide and with only the base of the W jamb preserved, are located midway along the S wall; the doorway was described by Harris as square-headed (1939, 178). In the E gable is the basal section of a rectangular light with splayed ingoings. This is 1m wide internally and .5m high; in 1841 its external face was described as formed 'of two stones rudely cut' (OSL), but these are no longer visible. The OSL also recorded two 'quadrangular windows . . . rudely formed of hammered stones' in the W and S walls, but these are not preserved. A section of coursed masonry abuts the inner face of the E end-wall and may represent the remains of an altar. Circular Cells: The remains of two circular 'cells' were visible outside the E gable of the church until the 1950s (CKFC), but have since become obscured by stone collapse. One of these may be the structure referred to by Brash and Harris respectively as a 'penitential station' and 'St Gobnet's cloghaun' {1879, 288; 1939, 178). A cross-incised stone (KE065-042008-), originally associated with a nearby holy well (KE065-042002-), was located in one of these cells in 1952 (CKFC). Ogham Stone (KE065-042006-): A fragment with several scores preserved, reading HATA, was recorded lying on the wall of one of the cells in 1869 (Brash 1879, 288). This may be the same stone that was noted at the site in 1938 by Harris (1939, 178). Macalister throws doubt on both identifications, however, and suggests that the stone may have been a fragment of a grooved paving slab (1945, 207). The above description is derived from O'Sullivan, A. and Sheehan, J. (compilers) 'The Iveragh peninsula: an archaeological survey of South Kerry'. Cork University press. (1996), no. 952. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 12 June 2013