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I had heard of the old tradition of placing coins into the bark of trees or as offerings at holy wells.
I remember, when I was young, visiting Gougane Barra and being amazed at the coins hammered into the tree and then last year seeing a sign requesting that coins not be placed in the tree.
Until recently, I had never seen coins hammered into a rock.
These were taken on a walk into Derrymore Glen, near Camp on the Dingle Peninsula when the rock was used as a table for a food and drink break.
The web does indicate the practice of hammering stones into a mass rock in Armagh as a type of offering.
Maybe that is what I saw in Derrymore. Or maybe it is something completely different.
I remember, when I was young, visiting Gougane Barra and being amazed at the coins hammered into the tree and then last year seeing a sign requesting that coins not be placed in the tree.
Until recently, I had never seen coins hammered into a rock.
These were taken on a walk into Derrymore Glen, near Camp on the Dingle Peninsula when the rock was used as a table for a food and drink break.
The web does indicate the practice of hammering stones into a mass rock in Armagh as a type of offering.
Maybe that is what I saw in Derrymore. Or maybe it is something completely different.
 | “Gougane Barra has been a popular place of pilgrimage for centuries and it became tradition for visitors to hammer coins into the cross. It was finally removed when it fell over from the weight of the coins in the mid-1990s and placed against a yew tree at the back of the settlement. While visitors have respected the caretakers wish not to hammer coins into the new cross, they still do so in the old cross. There are so many coins in the old cross that visitors have resorted to hammering them into the yew tree as well! “ |
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