Excavations of the early ecclesiastical site on Illaunloughan shed light on the interesting burial and religious practices of the island’s inhabitants, as well as their everyday life.
Illaunloughan (Oileán Lócháin), a tiny island in Portmagee Channel on Co. Kerry’s Iveragh Peninsula, preserves the remains of an early medieval church site. In the 1990s, archaeologists Jenny White-Marshall and Claire Walsh conducted extensive excavations on the island, unearthing the history of a settlement dating back to the mid-7th or 8th century.
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One of the most significant findings involved the slate gable shrine, which is perched on top of a leacht platform – a low, rectangular drystone mound. The entire structure was excavated. Dating to the 8th or 9th century, the gable shrine contained two stone-lined cists that held the disarticulated remains of three individuals, all believed to have lived and died in the 7th or 8th centuries. Among them was a child, just seven or eight years old. Scallop shells and quartz pebbles found inside the shrine further added to the mystery.
Beneath the leacht platform, three empty rock-cut graves were uncovered; their contents (the three bodies) were likely later moved to the gable shrine as part of a ritual of exhumation and translation.
Archaeologists argue that the enshrined relics in the gable shrine could belong to the site’s founders or other “special” individuals, possibly saints. Gable shrines are linked to the “Cult of Relics”, a medieval movement focused on the veneration of saintly corporeal remains, as well as their possessions such as bells and croziers. A similar gable shrine at Killabuonia, also in Co. Kerry, features a small hole at one end, allowing pilgrims to reach inside and presumably touch the relics they believed held healing powers.
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Where the sex of those buried on Illaunloughan during the early phases of activity on the island could be determined, all were male, suggesting that the site was likely home to a male-only monastic community in the early medieval period.
Also on the island were several hut sites, an ecclesiastical enclosure and a drystone oratory or church, which replaced an earthen church. Excavation evidence pointed to a range of domestic and industrial activities on the island, such as fine metalworking, bone carving and cereal processing.
The monks’ diet predominantly consisted of fish and seabirds, including seabream, wrasse, periwinkles and Manx shearwaters. The discovery of cabbage seeds indicates that the island’s early medieval inhabitants also cultivated vegetables.
In more recent times, the island was used as a cillín or children’s burial ground.
>>> READ MORE: The children’s burial ground in Drumanure, Co. Clare
This small glimpse into Illaunloughan’s past offers valuable insights into the spiritual and daily lives of Ireland’s early medieval religious communities.
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