Ratass Church is a medieval

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

with ogham stone inscriptions in

Tralee Tralee ( ; , ; formerly , meaning 'strand of the River Lee') is the county town of County Kerry in the south-west of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is on the northern side of the neck of the Dingle Peninsula, and is the largest town in ...

, County Kerry, Ireland. It is a

National Monument A national monument is a monument constructed in order to commemorate something of importance to national heritage, such as a country's founding, independence, war, or the life and death of a historical figure. The term may also refer to a sp ...

Location

The church and adjacent graveyard are located on Quill Street, in the eastern suburbs of

History

It is believed that a

ringfort Ringforts or ring forts are small circular fortification, fortified settlements built during the Bronze Age, Iron Age and early Middle Ages up to about the year 1000 AD. They are found in Northern Europe, especially in Ireland. There are ...

or embanked enclosure was built here first (''Rath Mhaighe Teas'', "fort of the southern plain"). Later, a

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

church was erected in the 10th century. It served as the

episcopal seat A cathedral is a church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominations with an episcop ...

of a diocese in Kerry from 1111 to 1117, when the seat was moved to Ardfert. The west gable and part of the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

walls belong to this earlier construction; the rest of the church is later.

Ogham Stone

The Ogham Stone is from much earlier. Based on its

Primitive Irish Primitive Irish or Archaic Irish (), also called Proto-Goidelic, is the oldest known form of the Goidelic languages, and the ancestor of all languages within this family. This phase of the language is known only from fragments, mostly persona ...

grammar, the inscription is estimated to be from around AD 550–600. The stone is of fine purple sandstone (145 × 34 × 20 cm), with the inscription " M SILLANN MAQ VATTILLOGG" ("name of Sílán son of Fáithloga"). It was discovered in 1975 during a cleanup. The walls of a 19th-century burial vault had been built almost flush with it.

References

Archaeological sites in County Kerry National monuments in County Kerry Former churches in County Kerry Ogham inscriptions 6th-century inscriptions Buildings and structures in Tralee {{Ireland-church-stub