After an extremely pleasant weekend spent walking, talking, swimming, getting plastered (etc) with a couple of old (English & Welsh) pals down on the Dingle Penisula, I return to blogging duties in something of a Neolithic (or is it Mesolithic?) frame of mind.
While we didn't engage in any concerted exploration of the peninsula's many monuments, we did catch sight of some natty beehive huts out on Slea Head. Almost on a par with the nattiness of the huts themselves was this nearby sign (snapped by our friend "Devo"),
There's something quite wonderful about it…though I'm not entirely sure what.
Anyway, as thoughts of things stoney and ancient are fizzing about my lobes I may as well dig out a few (year-old) standing stone images and fling them in your directions. The stone in question is to be found in a field in Aughacasla, Co. Kerry (a mere hop and a jump from where I've spent many of my last 20-something summers).
When we were kids it used to be known as "The Ogham Stone" (even though it appears to be totally devoid of Ogham) and it filled us (or at least me) with dark and uneasy thoughts. I can well recall nights spent lying in my bunk staring at the ceiling and trying not to imagine the moonlit, malevolent fairy revels I suspected were routinely taking place around it.
Sometime during the last 15 (?) years, however, an act of either 'vandalism' or 'artistic amendment' (take your pick) has turned what was once an eerie stone phallus into a grinning, slapdash bit of folk sculpture. I've no "Before" pics (alas), but here's a detailed "After":
The only significant mention I've found of this curious alteration is over at irishmegaliths.org:
Behind a cottage just S. of a caravan park is a fine standing-stone which has been altered in recent times to produce an anthropomorphic figure some 3 metres high. The cement-alterations are now starting to flake away, making the stone a remarkable piece of anonymous sculpture (modern 'folk-art') almost on a par with Celtic carved stones.
The (probably apocryphal) story I remember hearing was that a devout American Catholic had crept into the field one night with a bucket of cement and proceeded to create a crude likeness of the Virgin Mary. The reason for this, the tale went, was that the stone reminded him of a praying Virgin in profile. Hmmm…
The fusing of Mary and a "Pagan" monument lends the story terrific clout and colour, but I doubt that it really unfolded as told. Whatever the truth is it remains an undeniably fascinating object, particularly given the traditional "folk'" reticence to interfere with such things (for fear of a whupping from the 'gentry').
The full set of images can be seen here.
Is the BVM depicted as an owl in American Catholic iconography, I wonder? If so, looking at the last picture above I would say that the alterations to the monument were moderately successful…
As for the car park sign there are two possible explanations that I can think of:
1. it is a car park, but the management use it for their beehives instead…
2. the beehive hairdo which in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s was fashionable among teenage girls who wanted to look 35 is still the height of fashion in the Dingle peninsula and those women (and others)sporting the hairdo are locally known as ‘beehives’. The problem about the beehive in the 21st century is that most cars are too low to accomodate them and it is possible that those who adhere to the fashion in the Dingle peninsula have a hole cut in the roof of their cars through which would enable them to drive without their beehives being flattened. This of course would cause security problems, the cars in question being much easier to break into, thus obliging the local authorities to provide special high security carparks. I do not know if this is the case, but if while you were on the peninsula you happened to see cars with beehive hairdos poking through the roof this would provide valuable evidence to support my theory…
June 13th, 2007 at 1:15 pmNot as far as I know…but nice use of the acronym BVM.
Was the artist moved to make concrete (ho ho) the connection between the Irish penchant for “Marianism” and the island’s goddess-worshipping past? We may never know, but if I were the BVM I wouldn’t be too flattered by the portrait.
As I looked at the allegedly owl-like final image above I actually noticed another face gazing out at us from a crack on the stone’s left side.
Here’s a close up:
It too is smiling. This stone just gets jollier by the minute.
June 13th, 2007 at 6:53 pmIsn’t it a remarkable thing to contemplate, that if the same defacement had taken place 1500 years ago we’d all be delighted with it?
June 14th, 2007 at 12:29 amWell the use/function of such monuments/sites wasn’t ever really static and fixed. Was actually chatting about just that to our visiting pals as we drove back to Limerick.
Take Newgrange and its spiral designs for example. It’s popularly imagined as an iconic “Celtic” monument even though it pre-dates Celtic Ireland by (to the best of my knowledge) a couple of thousand years. How did the “Celts” interpret/use it? Were their interactions with it “authentic”? These questions aren’t always easy to answer.
Having said that, a late 20th century cement “amendment” to an ancient standing stone probably doesn’t score high points in anyone’s authenticity stakes.
June 14th, 2007 at 11:36 amThe standing stone may not be that ancient. Lots of them were erected for no other reason than to allow cattle a good scratch - a mercy indeed in the days before pour-over insecticides and other pesticides. That said the Aughacasla stone may well have been the real deal surrounded as it is by ancient monuments.
June 15th, 2007 at 10:54 amI think the last photo makes clear to all but the most stubborn that it is a dove giving a piggy-back to an owl. Now go write a legend to fit.
June 15th, 2007 at 11:50 amlondoner, While the Aughacasla stone undoubtedly serves the purposes of itchy-arsed cows most admirably, I suspect that it is “the real deal” (I feel it in my pagan bones). Aren’t “scratching stones” usually smaller and squatter anyway?
Fergal, You refer, of course, to the early Christian legend of “St. Brigid, the dove of the Holy Spirit, and the visit of the Midnight Owl”. Sure isn’t it taught to every chiddler in Ireland? It still puts terrors up me to this day.
June 15th, 2007 at 2:09 pmUncanny - I just got back from visiting my Ma in Aughacasla a couple of days ago. She’s just a few fields away, and across the low road, from the stone. I’m glad it, and the fairy fort on the way to Castle, are still around.
June 16th, 2007 at 4:54 pmNiall, I tried to find the CastleG fairy fort on Google Earth but it remains (in typical fairy fashion) elusive. Perhaps the resolution simply isn’t good enough (he said in an unconvincing, pseudo-scientific manner).
June 16th, 2007 at 11:08 pmIf memory serves, it’s a little past the arch-shaped footbridge you’ll cross when you walk the low road to Castlegregory. In our walks last week, the bridge was our ne plus ultra and we’d walk back home along the strand, but I was told that it’s still there.
Perhaps it manifests according to the wishes of the beholder - did Google Earth show you, I dunno, Dana winning Eurovision in 1970 or something?
{har har!}
June 17th, 2007 at 5:54 pmFound it:
52 degrees, 14′47.87 N
9 degrees, 59′41.37 W
I saw an off-license with a decent beer selection.
June 17th, 2007 at 6:06 pmGoogle Earth actually showed me Dick Roche being burnt in a giant Wicker Phallus. It was lovely.
After rubbing my eyes, however, I can now see the “fort” in question. The above stone is also barely detectable (by its shadow) not too far away at some co-ordinates or other.
June 18th, 2007 at 3:19 pmSince I got back to Aughacasla, I’ve seen the “BVM” initialism everywhere. It’s under the Virgin on the junction of the main road toward Conor Pass and Castlegregory, and on the sacristy {I think that’s what it is} in the church in Castlegregory. I can’t believe I never noticed that.
August 1st, 2007 at 8:43 pmIt’s possibly on the grotto that stands at the junction of two roads on the Magharees peninsula too - though I’d have to check that. Be Very Mindful of your surroundings and you’ll see all.
August 6th, 2007 at 9:18 pm