Cave

The National Monuments Service's description

This record is for a cave in the townland of Kilmurry in which during limestone quarrying in 1944 a hoard of bronze artifacts was found beneath c. 0.6m on soil (Topographical File, National Museum of Ireland). The hoard comprised three bronze bracelets, a looped socketed axehead and a socketed leaf-shaped arrowhead. One of the bracelets is La Tene style (NMI reg. nos. 1944:299, 300, 301, 302, 303).
Kilmurry Cave (or Faill an Aifrinn) - The location of this site is not clear. It may be one of three caves currently known in the townland (Jones 1995, 15-17) but alternatively may have been destroyed during quarrying in the 1940s. In 1944 the site was known as Faill an Aifrinn (the Cliff of the Mass) but this name does not appear on the 1st Edition OS Map or in the Ordnance Survey Namebooks of 1841. According to local tradition, in Penal times Mass was celebrated in the cave (Topographical File, NMI). Two large boulders that were once inside the cave were said to have been used as an altar. Steps that provided access to the site were also reputedly associated with this period of activity (ibid.). In 1944, during limestone quarrying, a hoard of Late Bronze Age artefacts was found at the cave. The original unpublished record of discovery stated: ‘It is difficult to explain how far exactly from the cave they were found. About 50 years ago it was a large natural cave. Since then the immediate vicinity has been quarried for limestone. The roof of the cave, and probably some of the walls have been quarried away. The location of the find was over either the roof or the side-wall of the cave. When found they were covered with about 2ft. of earth and stones and were resting together on a flat rock. About a year ago 4 or 5ft. of earth was removed from over them’. The hoard comprised a bronze socketed axehead (1944:302), a bronze socketed spearhead (1944:299), two plain bronze penannular bracelets (1944: 301, 303) and a bronze penannular Hallstatt C bracelet (1944:300). The latter is an import from eastern France, possibly from the Alsace region where these bracelets were particularly common (Eogan 1964, 320; Raftery 1994a, 30-1). This dates the hoard to approximately 650 BC (Eogan 1983, 94)'.

The above details have been kindly supplied by Dr Marion Dowd (August 2013)

Date of upload: 24 April 2022

References

Dowd, M. 2015 The archaeology of caves in Ireland. Oxford. Oxbow Books.

Dowd, M.A. 1997 The human use of caves in the south of Ireland. Unpublished M.A. thesis. University College, Cork.

Dowd, M.A. 2004 Caves: sacred places on the Irish landscape. Unpublished PhD thesis. University College, Cork.

Eogan, G. 1964 The later Bronze Age in Ireland in the light of recent research. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 30, 268-351.