Friday, 18 August 2023

The Bishop's Stone. Fermanagh

At a place called Killadeas at Fermanangh and in the province of Ulster is to be found The Priory Church, a Church of Ireland Church.

Located within the grounds are several very interesting and unusual antiquities and among them is the Bishop Stone.

It is an upright carved stone depicting two human figures, one each on the front and back.

The front is clearly a human head with a Celtic style interlace pattern running down from it.

The rear is slightly more difficult to make out and my photo's were taken in particularly bad light.

It depicts a figure carrying a Crook or Crozier and a Bell.

I am assuming that this is the figure from which the stone derives its name, the Bishop Stone.

Also situated in the grounds is a single upright Standing Stone, the Pillar Stone.

A further large upright Stone is described as a Cross Slab stone and depicts a a large circular cross on a forked stem containing four "triquetas" as described by Macalister.

On the rear of the slab are many holes which have been variously described as ; possible Bullauns, Cup marks, or lastly unknown.

None of these explanations other than unknown seem accurate.

The holes while certainly enigmatic seem too large to be any type on ancient cup marks and slightly too small to be Bullauns however of the two Bullauns would be more probable especially considering the stones ecclesiastical location.

They are certainly very unusual whatever purpose or origin they may have had and only serve to lend a little mystery to the delightful antiquity.

Corpus Inscriptionum - Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister

A short history of the Manor

Continuing the "unusual stones" theme there is also a large earthfast "holed" stone partially sunk into the ground.

Often these "holed stones" served specific ritualistic purposes and some are stones which have been "repurposed" and reused at religious sites for centuries.

It's not possible to determine the origin of this stone. It may be a repurposed former Mill stone or it may have its origins in a distant prehistory. We will never know for sure.

Finally I came across a small and as far as I know unrecorded stone which appeared to have a multitude of Cup marks carved onto it.

I have no idea whether or not these markings are indeed Bronze age Cup marks but to my untrained eye that's exactly what they looked like and my first thought was that perhaps this small stone was once part of a larger stone.