Cursing stone

The National Monuments Service's description

This record refers to fifteen cross-carved, rounded stones or cobbles known as the ‘cursing stones’ or ‘clocha breacha’ (speckled stones). They are associated with a leacht (SL001-001013-) in an ecclesiastical enclosure (SL011-011001-), known as ‘The Cashel’ on Inishmurray Island. Eight are in situ on the island, four are in the National Museum together with a possible fifth (DU018-409----), one is in Alnwick Castle, and the location of one other is unknown. The spherical cobbles vary in size (diam. 0.12-0.41m) and bear a variety of incised designs; the more elaborate examples may date stylistically to between the period between the late 9th and 11th centuries.
Use of cursing stones is recorded in an annotation on an early 17th-century map of Inishmurray, and reads as follows: ‘In this islande there dwelleth a holye man called Scanlon of whom the countrie people holde a superstitious opinion that if he be angry with any one and do turne the speckled stones upon them which he kepeth for that use they shall dye within that yeare.’ (Captain John Baxter’s ‘Map of the North-West Parte of Ireland’ (1603), in The Admiralty Library, Greenwich. Quoted in O’Sullivan and Ó Carragáin 2008, 23, plate 13).

For a detailed description of these stones and associated rituals see:
Jerry O’Sullivan and Tomás Ó Carragáin 2008 Inishmurrary. Monks and pilgrims in an Atlantic landscape. Volume 1: Archaeological Survey and Excavations 1997-2000. Cork. The Collins Press.
pp. 105-110, 335-41.

Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy

Date of upload: 9 March 2018