Kilnaruane Pillar Stone

Kilnaruane Pillar Stone is located about 1.6 km (1 mile) southwest of Bantry, atop a drumlin, in a square enclosure in a field.[2]

A monastery may have been founded here by Brendan in the 6th century AD.[3]

The pillar was erected in the 8th or 9th century AD. The name may refer to "Church of the Romans", and a community which accepted the Roman dating of Easter, a major controversy in the early Middle Ages.[4][5]

The monastic settlement on the site may have been destroyed by a Viking attack.[6]

The stone is a thin schist pillar 2.1 m tall.[7]

On the northeast face:

• Celtic knot
• an orans (praying figure)
• Greek cross
• Saints Anthony the Great and Paul the Hermit meeting in the desert: both were important figures in Christian monasticism. A raven flies down from heaven with a loaf of bread to feed them

Skin-boat carved on the SW face.

On the southwest face

• Celtic knot
• Two pairs of sheep/goats with interlocked horns — this is now the symbol of the Sheep's Head peninsula
• a currach boat with four oarsmen and one figure steering the rowers through a sea of crosses. This could be Brendan or Cessair.[8]

Mortises on either side of the pillar were probably for attaching arms of the cross.[9] Nearby are stone fragments, possibly a bullaun or the arms of the high cross.[10][11]

• 
  Arm of the cross?
• 
  Celtic interlace
• 
  SE face