Baile-an tsagairt, the town of the priest; the priest's townland
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Nothing is known of the history of this enclosed relgious site, and its church- if there was any-has disappeared. Nine stones have been collected here from various locations nearby. They are carved with ogham, consisting of lines and strokes along the edge of a stone representing an early form of the Irish language. The stones seem to have been used to commemorate a person who had died. The stones here are unlike those on which ogham was normally carved; all are long water-rolled boulders with no clearly defined edges so the inscriptions were made on flat surfaces. The carvings mention various people we know nothing about the individuals. Two of them are Suall, grandon of Dochar; and Cormac, grandson of Coirpre; four stones also have crosses inscribed on them. |
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Amongst the inscriptions are the following:
Dovinas was an ancient goddess of the Corcu Duibne, the people who gave her name to the Dingle Peninsular Discovery: first mentioned, 1804 Vallancey, Co Kerry (Ciarrai) . Form of sandstone boulder. Crosses: latin, linear, straight, non-explained. Folklore; none. Language; Goidelic (ogham). Saints; none. |
The site of Ballintaggart church and old burial ground; An Cheallúnach or An Lisín: This circular enclosure crowns the summit of a low, but prominent, hillock between Dingle Harbour and Trabeg. The site of a church is shown within the enclosure on the OS maps, but nothing more is known about this, and no visible trace survives. Children were still being interred there in the burial ground in the mid-19th century. A low cairn of stones, including much quartz, lies c. 13m to E of the enclosure and 'other tombs' with great unshapen stones half buried' lay a little to E of this again .
Ballin Tagart is a reconstructed court tomb, now situated at Botanic Gardens behind Ulster Museum. Apparently it was rescued from destruction by quarrying in County Tyrone; A four-chambered tomb, originally from Ballintaggart in county Armagh.
