Corraghy Heads

The Corraghy Heads was the name given to two physically connected Iron Age stone idols uncovered c. 1855 in the townland of Drumeague, County Cavan, Ireland. The sculpture consisted of a two-headed or double idol janus structure of a human and ram's head linked by a long cross-piece. The ram's head was lost in the mid-19th century; the human head survives and is now in the National Museum of Ireland, but is rarely displayed. This head is unusually naturalistic for the time, having ears, hair and a beard.

Speculative drawing of the heads. The Corraghy heads are to the left and right; the Corleck Head is above and centre.

The same excavation unearthed the contemporary Corleck stone idol; they are sometimes collectively referred to as "the Corleck Gods". Based on their iconography, two objects are usually dated to the late Iron Age, probably to the 1st or 2nd century AD. Archeologists believe that they once formed part of a larger shrine on Drumeague Hill that was associated with a Celtic head cult, and were later used during the Lughnasadh harvest festivals.

Discovery

View of the Corleck Head, 1st century AD

The intact co-joined heads were uncovered by the local farmer James Longmore c. 1855 in the townland of Drumeague, County Cavan, during the excavation of a large c. 2500 BC passage tomb on Corleck hill. The sculpture was found buried alongside the Corleck Head, another janiform sculpture which is less complex but in its simplicity more artistically refined.

Its age and significance were not understood until the 1940s, when they were seen by the local historian Thomas J. Barron, who recognised them as prehistoric. According to reports from locals, the Corraghy and Corleck heads were displayed together on a wall in front of a house, with the Corleck head placed on top of the Corraghy heads. The ram's head was destroyed after 1865 when the Longmores sold the lease on the farm to Thomas Hall. According to Hall, his sons accidentally smashed a significant portion of the sculpture while trying to separate the two heads.

The human head was thought lost until it was rediscovered by Barron in 1969, who found it embedded in the wall of a farmyard barn in the townland of Corraghy.

The human Corraghy head has been compared to the Killeen head, discovered in Belcarra, County Mayo; both share similar long necks and long rectangular base.

Function

Today archaeologists assume both the Corleck and Corraghy were intended to be placed on top of a large shrine, and were buried around the same time, perhaps to hide them from early Christians keen to eradicate the worship of pagan idols, or any history of Celtic "head-cults".

Sources

• Barron, Thomas J. "Some Beehive Quernstones from Counties Cavan and Monaghan". Clogher Record, volume 9, No. 1, 1976. JSTOR 27695733
• Kelly, Eamonn. "The Iron Age". In Ó Floinn, Raghnall; Wallace, Patrick (eds). Treasures of the National Museum of Ireland: Irish Antiquities. Dublin: National Museum of Ireland, 2002. ISBN 978-0-7171-2829-7
• Lanigan Wood, Helen. "Images of stone". Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1976
• Ó Hogain, Dáithí. "Patronage & Devotion in Ancient Irish Religion". History Ireland, volume 8, no. 4, winter 2000. JSTOR 27724824
• Ross, Anne. The Pagan Celts. Denbighshire: John Jones, 1998. ISBN 978-1-8710-8361-3
• Ross, Anne. Druids: Preachers of Immortality. Cheltenham: The History Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7524-1433-1
• Smyth, Jonathan. Gentleman and Scholar: Thomas James Barron, 1903 – 1992. Cumann Seanchais Bhreifne, 2012. ISBN 978-0-9534-9937-3
• Waddell, John. Pagan Ireland: Ritual and Belief in Another World. Dublin: Wordwell Books, 2023. ISBN 978-1-9167-4202-4
• Waddell, John. The Prehistoric Archaeology of Ireland. Galway: Galway University Press, 1998. ISBN 978-1-8698-5739-4

External links

• The Corleck Head and other aspects of east Cavan's ancient past. Video lecture by Jonathan Smyth, Cavan Library, 2023