Leacht

The National Monuments Service's description

On a cliff-edge at the most westerly point on Inishmurray, located adjacent to a hermitage (SL001-007001-), within an enclosure (SL001-007006-).
This small complex of monuments, in danger of collapse at the eroding cliff edge, was fully excavated (licence: 97E0256) in 1997 in advance of its reconstruction by the OPW on its current location at a safe distance from the cliff-edge (O’Sullivan and Ó Carragáin 2008, 216-239).
The leacht consists of a roughly square, flat-topped drystone structure, described by O’Sullivan and Ó Carragáin (2008, 174) as follows: ‘The side walls were raised in well laid courses of flat rubble, with some thin flat orthostatic slabs appearing in the basal course. These walls contained a core of loose, vacuous small rubble which was brought to a roughly levelled finish at the surface of the altar. The whole comprised a regular, ‘square’ cairn, 0.7 m high and 1.9 m in maximum length.’
The excavation revealed that the leacht was built directly on top of an earlier structure. This consisted of a small area of paving (max. dim. c. 2m) with a central stone-packed post-hole, designed to take an upright timber post (diam. c. 0.2m) (O’Sullivan and Ó Carragáin 2008, 219). The evidence, therefore, suggests that when the hermitage (SL001-007001-) was first in use, a wooden table altar stood adjacent to it, which was later replaced by the stone altar/leacht (ibid, 236). Following the construction of the leacht, a stone path was laid leading from the N side of the leacht to the doorway of the hermitage. Later again, probably in the 17th century, the square enclosure (SL001-007007-) was built to surround the hermitage and the leacht. The excavation found that the hermitage, the leacht and the enclosing wall had all been subjected to successive episodes of rebuilding in the modern period. (O’Sullivan and Ó Carragáin 2008).
A cross-slab (SL001-007003-), which originally stood on the leacht, was removed to the Schoolhouse/OPW conservation store. Another cross-slab (SL001-007008-) may also have been associated with the leacht, but was found in the hermitage, where it appears it was used to rebuild the doorway.

Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy

Date of upload: 23 January 2018

References

O'Sullivan J. and Ó Carragáin T. 2008 Inishmurray: Monks and Pilgrims in an Atlantic Landscape. Volume 1: Archaeological Survey and Excavations 1997-2000. The Collins Press. Cork.