Treenode beg — Inishmurray

Located 260m to SE of an ecclesiastical enclosure/cashel (SL001-001001-), over cliffs. This is a National Monument (no. 117) in state ownership. This ruined leach is traditionally known as Treenode Beg (Tríonóid Beg or ‘Small Trinity [Leacht]’). There is now only a low rubble mound – thickly covered by strongly rooted weeds – where Wakeman (1893, 141) described a leacht of ‘ twelve paces round; very rudely constructed, and of inconsiderable height’. Mountbatten (1972, 76) had more to say but in his own acerbic fashion: ‘Treenode Beg is ... a mixture between a large tumbled down altar and a very small walled enclosure, in fact there is really only a heap of stones with a stone Flag left’. Herity (1995, 114) gave dimensions and noticed the cross, describing ‘a low dry-built leacht, 2.36 m east/west by 2.25 m north/south ... on it stands a small sandstone slab.’ The cross-slab (SL001-014002-) was removed to the Schoolhouse/OPW conservation store in 1989. A few meters to E, another leacht (SL001-013003-), known as Treenode More, is located within an enclosure (SL001-013001-). The above description is derived from the results of a survey of the archaeological monuments on Inishmurray undertaken in 1997-1999 and published in: Jerry O’Sullivan and Tomás Ó Carragáin 2008 Inishmurrary. Monks and pilgrims in an Atlantic landscape. Volume 1: Archaeological Survey and Excavations 1997-2000. Cork. The Collins Press. Date of upload: 19 February 2018