Font

The National Monuments Service's description

Ballywiheen Church/Teampall Bhaile Bhoithín: A stone font lies inside the church (KE042-103001-).

Font: A roughly circular, flat-bottomed stone basin with a central perforation in its base. It is 0.25m deep and a maximum of 0.25m in diameter internally. A 2nd, roughly circular, flat-bottomed basin, now damaged, is 0.38m in diameter but only 0.8m deep internally. It, too, is perforated through the base and it seems likely that the 1st basin was intended to sit inside the 2nd basin and that both probably rested on a pedestal.

In 2007 a graveyard survey carried out by Karen Buckley and Laurence Dunne recorded the following details about the font inside Ballywiheen church; 'Ballywiheen church and graveyard is located within the townland of Ballineanig Churchquarter, c.1km southeast of Ballyferriter village on the Dingle Peninsula. The graveyard is situated on the lower eastern slopes of Ballineanig Hill set back c.200m from a sweeping bend of the Ventry to Ballyferriter road. There are extensive views from the graveyard with Smerwick Harbour visible to the north while to the west-southwest, Cruach Mhárthain can be seen. The ruined church is located centrally within the graveyard and there is an obvious bias of more recent, modern graves to its north and older graves to its south. There is no sign of the font fragments also recorded in the Dingle Survey (ibid) however, this may be due to the overgrown nature of the interior' (Buckley and Dunne 2007, 8).

The above description is derived from J. Cuppage, ‘Corca Dhuibhne. Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey. Ballyferriter. Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne’ (1986), no. 981. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 11 July 2022

References

Cuppage, J. 1986 Corca Dhuibhne. Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey. Ballyferriter. Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne.

Buckley, K. and Dunne L. 2007 Archaeological Survey, Ballywiheen Church & Graveyard, Ballineanig-Churchquarter, Co. Kerry. Unpublished report commissioned by the Heritage Office, Kerry County Council.