Qualla: Maumanorig

Maumanorig: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jibi44, CC BY 2.5. On a stone at the heart of a small circular enclosure north of Ventry, someone carved a name in vertical notches: COLMAN AILITHIR. Colmán, the pilgrim. The stone is about 115 cm tall, scored on its west face with two crosses and the Ogham letters that fix this man in time around the year 565. He may have been the grandson of an Irish high king. He may have been on his way to Skellig Michael, that knife-edged sea crag where monks lived in beehive huts above the Atlantic, or up the slopes of Mount Brandon. We do not know if he came back. The site, called Maumanorig or sometimes Kilcolman, is now barely a ring of low walls in a field — but the stone is still here, still legible, still doing its quiet job of remembering.

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Image: Jibi44 | CC BY 2.5

Maumanorig: Hill-Top of the Yellow Stones

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hawkwind, Public domain. The Irish name Maumanorig has two possible readings: "hill-top of the yellow stones" or "mountain pass of the Hoares." Either way, it marks a small high place 1.2 km north of Ventry on the southern side of the Dingle Peninsula. The site is tiny — barely 0.18 hectares — but it was...

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Image: Hawkwind | Public domain

Maumanorig: The Pilgrim's Stone

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ridiculopathy, CC0. The Ogham inscription reads ANM COLMAN AILITHIR — "the name of Colmán, the pilgrim." Ogham was Ireland's earliest writing system, a script of strokes cut along the edges of upright stones, mostly used between the 4th and 7th centuries. Most surviving Ogham stones are funerary, re...

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Image: Ridiculopathy | CC0

Maumanorig: What Pilgrims Left Behind

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ridiculopathy, CC0. The enclosure itself is the kind of thing you might walk past without seeing: a low circular wall, a couple of hut sites where stone huts once stood, several grave markers. There is a small cross-inscribed stone, a holed stone (its purpose unclear — perhaps for tying a halter, pe...

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Image: Ridiculopathy | CC0

Maumanorig: The Quiet Western Edge

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ridiculopathy, CC0. Maumanorig is one of perhaps fifty early monastic sites scattered across the Dingle Peninsula. Some, like Skellig Michael and Kilmalkedar, draw tour buses. This one does not. It sits in private farmland, accessible by a small path, and on most days you can stand inside the enclos...

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Image: Ridiculopathy | CC0