Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland
Ogham stone
Dunbell Big, County Kilkenny, Ireland
The record
- Townland
- Dunbell Big
- County
- Kilkenny
- Country
- Ireland
- First-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- Latest-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- Coordinates
- 52.61804, -7.17806
- SMR number
- KK024-010004-
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesUniversity Library, Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
Shown on 4 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1790 "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).
This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗
The National Monuments Service's description
Prim (1872-3, 225) published a map of the raths in Dunbell, with one of the enclosures (KK024-010001-), annotated ‘D’ and described as, ‘the rath in which the Oghams were found’. Prim (1853-5, 403) records that two ogham stones (KK024-010003-; KK024-010004-) were found near the entrance to a souterrain (KK024-010002-), to the NNE, ‘standing nearly upright, but both inclining outwards from the mound of the rath’. The ringfort was being levelled at the time of discovery and according to Prim (ibid.), ‘the workmen said that the stones were so large that they were in the way, and, therefore, they had borrowed a sledge-hammer and smashed them to pieces’. The fragments, described as a ‘purplish-grey’ sandstone, were recovered and reconstructed (ibid. 404-5). According to Prim (ibid. 405), ‘No. 2 had suffered far greater injury than the first. Some of the fragments were minute in the extreme, and portions had been literally pulverized, so that it was impossible to recover them. We, however, obtained no fewer than forty-four pieces…The stone, thus reconstructed, measures, in length, 6 feet 3½ inches [1.9m]; in width 1 foot 1 inch [0.32m] at one end, narrowing to 11 inches [0.28m], to where there is a step within 8½ inches [0.22m] of the top, at which point the width decreases to 7½ inches [0.19m]. The depth is 11 inches [0.28m] at one end, gradually diminishing to 8 inches [0.21m] at the other. The inscription commences at 1 foot 10 inches [0.56m] from the larger end and extends to the other extremity. The frequent occurrence of the fractures has injured the scores in serveral, and obliterated them in a few places.
The pieces are now in the National Museum of Ireland (DU018-402----; DU018-403----). The inscription was read by Macalister (1945, 35, no. 30) and McManus (1997, 65) as: NAVALL[O] AVVI GENITTAC . . . .
See attached sketch in Prim 1853-5, 397-408
Compiled by: Jean Farrelly and Nora White
Date of revised upload: 9 November 2021
References
Macalister, R.A.S. 1945 Corpus inscriptionum insularum celticarum. Dublin. Stationery Office.
McManus, D. 1991 A guide to ogam. Maynooth: Monographs 4. Maynooth. An Sagart.
Nearby in the register
- Ringfort - rathunder 1 mi
- Souterrainunder 1 mi
- Ogham stoneunder 1 mi
- Burialunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.