Illauntannig Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Site

National Monument No. 67. Illauntannig is the largest of the Magharee Islands which lie off the N tip of the peninsula that separates Brandon Bay and Tralee Bay. The Early Christian settlement KE019-002001- is enclosed by a strong cashel wall and is comprised of 2 small oratories, 3 bee-hive huts, a souterrain and wall-chamber, 3 leachts, a burial ground and a stone cross. Three cross-slabs, a bullaun stone, a hand-bell and fragments of 5 quern-stones have also been discovered within the enclosure and a 2nd bullaun stone lies at the edge of the sea about 100m to S. The hut-site, old field walls and reputed cross-inscribed boulder on Reennafardarrig may also be related to this early settlement.

Cashel Wall: This drystone-built wall encloses a roughly oval area, c. 51m N-S and 43m WNW-ESE. Much of the E half of the wall has been damaged or carried away entirely by the action of the sea and a concrete retaining wall has been built to prevent further erosion. About 1m inside the latter are the remains of a drystone-built retaining wall which is not shown on Dunraven's plan (1875) and may therefore be a later 19th century/early 20th century attempt at conserving the site. Along the SSE sector the outer wall-face of the cashel has simply been rebuilt inside its former line. The wall around the W half of the enclosure is 4.5 to 5.5m thick, 1.3 to 1.75m high externally and up to 1m high internally. A 2nd outer face commences at W and continues as far as the modern retaining wall at NE. It lies c. 1.6m outside the main outer face and, though the facing is fairly ruinous, the core material it retains is c. 1m high on average. The main outer face rises .8 to 1.2m above this, but in this sector its upper courses, c. 0.55m high, have been built-up in relatively modern times to form a narrow wall on top of the original one. Inside this, the original wall is generally collapsed and grass-grown. In the early 19th century the wall was apparently not much higher than the ground surface (OSNB Killiney, book 2, 20). Dunraven (1875, 37) described it as considerably destroyed and noted that the outer face was traceable for a distance of only 20 feet (6m) though his ground plan is less clear on this matter. The present remains are much better preserved than these accounts imply and changes have obviously occurred since the 19th century. These may have involved nothing more than the removal of rubble to expose underlying features, but may also have involved some rebuilding. At present the chronological relationship between the 2 outer faces is unclear. An open passage through the wall at WSW provides access to the interior. It is 5.5m long, 1.2m wide and 1.6m high. A short distance to S of it the inner face of the wall kinks inwards to form a small, open, D-shaped recess which appears too small to be a hut-site; its function is not known.

To see a 3D model of this island visit: https://skfb.ly/oqDoK