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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Rock art

Letter West, County Kerry, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Rock art, Letter West, County Kerry, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Letter West
County
Kerry
Country
Ireland
Coordinates
52.01660, -10.01434
SMR number
KE071-195----

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1753 map "Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae" (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1753 · Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

An earthfast sandstone boulder in rocky boggy pasture is inscribed with a single cup-and-ring motif on the SE end of its upper surface (measuring - at N: 1.55m, S: 0.8m, E: 1.25m W: 1.5m). The cup-and-ring motif (0.7m W of the edge at E, 0.65m above the S edge) is irregular in form, having a sub-circular cupmark (diam. 0.05m, D. 1mm) enclosed by a ring (diam. 0.12m, D. 1mm) which is composed of a series of pickmarks (diam. 3mm, D. 1mm) which are closely picked at W and S where the ring is readily traceable and loosely picked at N and E. The upper surface of this boulder slopes upwards (from a height of 0.6m at its S end to 0.8m at its N end) to NE where it has commanding views down the Behy River Valley beyond Cromane and Castlemaine Harbour to the Dingle Peninsula. A small drystone enclosure (diam.: c. 2.5m, H: c.1m) to SW is separated from the decorated boulder by a 0.7m long low wall formed of two boulders. The SW side of this enclosure is formed by the vertical face of a large conspicuous boulder which is squarish in plan (having sides c. 3m long) with an upper surface partly overlain with peat.

Compiled by: Aoibheann Lambe

Date of upload/revision: 12 November 2018

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
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