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A Lost Hermitage

  • Writer: Hugh MacMahon
    Hugh MacMahon
  • Jul 16
  • 2 min read

In another country Killelton would be on the National Tourist Network – it sits on an ancient trail, has a deserted village, a 9th hermitage, the grave of a 2000 BC Celtic princess and panoramic views over Tralee Bay.

However here it is a well-kept secret.  I know because I had to make two trips to the area and question five locals before finding it.  

Killelton is on the ‘Dingle Way’, aka the ‘Dingle Camino’, a 179 km circular walk starting and finishing in Tralee. The section from Dingle to Camp (a village, not a site) is called the ‘Old Road’ and was used for centuries until the present road was constructed in the 19th century.  Originally wide enough for two cows to pass, now shrubs encroach on it and water from the hillside provide streams to be jumped.

Despite being called a ‘Famine Village’, the name Killelton (‘Cell of Elton’) indicates it was there a thousand years before the Famine.

A local man told me that Elton had two brother saints with churches in the area. One is just three kilometres away, Kilgobban, called after his brother Gobban (Moghoba). However I could find no trace of the other brother, Seadna.   

A tract on the mothers of Irish saints states their mother was Maghna, a sister of St David of Wales and all three were buried in Kinsale!  If that is true it would place them around the year 600. Unlikely but possible.  

Inside the enclosure wall at Killelton are a small stone church, two rectangular buildings, a bullaun stone, graves and a ‘sacred tree’.  Recent excavations indicate that what began as a hermit‘s cell (Elton’s) developed when a small group of other hermits came to live there but it never became a formal monastic settlement with monks living, working, praying and studying together.   

Evacuations also indicate that the church is the most easterly of a group of drystone churches in County Kerry that may have been ‘official’ stops on the pilgrim trail to places further on like Kilmalkedar, Mount Brandon and Skelligs.

What about the Celtic princess? A local historian claimed that Fas, the princess-wife of one of the first Celtic invaders in West Kerry, is buried under the church! The area was called Glenfas after her.  The historian insisted that further excavations would prove her correct!

Getting to Killelton Village, and the hermitage hidden behind it,  can be a bit of an adventure but you can take courage from the fact  you are on the (now almost) lost trail followed by pilgrims for centuries along the south of Tralee Bay.

One local man told me he had never been there and another (non-local) that it was the most interesting place he had ever visited. So go and see for yourself.

 
 
 

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