Introduction

The process of conversion in Ireland was initiated in the late fourth or fifth century but probably continued until the eighth (cf. O’Brien 1993, 133-6), and the story of the maturation of the Irish Church in this period is one in which the alternative of paganism recedes gradually. The present study concentrates on the period of ecclesiastical consolidation rather than the initial stages of the Church's establishment, essentially because the archaeological data from the later period are currently more intelligible. Amodel is proposed for the development of the Church and its reshaping of the cultural landscape at the western ends of the Iveragh and Dingle peninsulas, Co. Kerry (Fig. 9.1).

Iveragh and Dingle are poorly served by the early documentary sources but are rich in above-ground archaeological remains. Their eastern and middle sections are dominated by the highest mountains in Ireland – the Slieve Mish and Mt. Brandon Massifs on Dingle and the Macgillycuddy's Reeks on Iveragh (Fig. 9.1) – and there is a strong case for treating the relatively low-lying areas to the west of these as a distinct region, somewhat removed from the eastern sections but united culturally as well as politically by close maritime contacts. The distribution of corbelled, dry-stone churches serves to illustrate the point. This distinctive church type is ubiquitous at the western ends of Iveragh and Dingle, but in contrast definite examples occur at just one site east of the mountains (at Illauntannig on Dingle), and only a handful occur elsewhere in Ireland (Ó Carragáin forthcoming). Broadly speaking the ecclesiastical archaeology of the western sections is well-defined: of the 66 substantial sites the majority are delimited by a bank averaging 37 metres across, within which are a number of domestic buildings, and a cross-slab, burial ground and dry-stone church at the east end. This general coherence lends validity to the present study, which seeks to identify and analyse significant variations within this data set.

Our chronology for these sites is still quite rudimentary. Reask and Caherlehillan have produced late fifth- to sixth-century Mediterranean pottery, which seems to relate to phases characterised mainly by wooden buildings (Fanning 1981, 154–5; Sheehan 2001).