What is recorded here

Nine terraces climbed the island mound, paved in dark slate and dusted with white quartz until the path shimmered like a tide. People may have carried offerings upward, past buried bones and a charnel pit holding at least four others, toward a lost tent-shaped shrine at the top. The island did not ask to be believed; it asked to be climbed, remembered and left unchanged.

National Monument No. 59. In the S sector of the ecclesiastical enclosure (KE079-032001-). A large terraced shrine mound (min. L 26m; Wth 20m), containing at least nine stone terraces, was partially excavated in 2004 (Hayden 2007, 175). Low stone walls defined the edges of the terraces while their surfaces were at least partly paved with Valentia slate and covered with small and large white quartz pebbles. Hayden noted that the uppermost terrace of this shrine, which was removed during O'Kelly's excavation in the 1950s, would have held a tent-shaped gable shrine. Traces of burials were found on terraces no. 7 and no. 8 and a stone-lined charnel pit, containing the remains of at least four individuals, lay at the NE side of terrace no. 7. The corner-post shrine (KE079-032010-) excavated by O'Kelly (1958, 57-136) in the 1950s stood at the SE corner of terrace no. 5. (Hayden 2007, 175) Compiled by: Elizabeth Byrne, Ursula Egan and Sheila Ronan, Archaeological Survey Unit, University College, Cork. Date of upload: 30 May 2011

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.