But is it art?

Just back from a mega few days in South Kerry. We left in a flurry of snowfall and some dodgy roads but by the time we hit Bantry everything cleared and the journey to the Iveragh  Peninsula was stress-free. Fuelled with coffee and French patisseries in Kenmare, we took in a few excitements on the way to be back - blipped shortly. 

The main purpose for our visit was to bag a few holy wells and some rock art. We went back to Derrynablaha - and today conditions were rather different with wall to wall sunshine, but perishing - temperatures never above 3C. Derrynablaha could not be more remote - in a long valley flanked by the biggest mountains in Ireland and conditions were challenging. We all had a good giggle as we old enough to know better - struggled through the crisp still icy bog, hoiked ourselves over barbed wire fences, startled the sheep and clambered breathlessly up very steep mountainage.  
This area has one of the largest concentrations of  rock art in Ireland and we had the expert on hand - Finola did her Masters on rock art and she regaled us with stories of how, as a young thing, she set off on a Honda 50  and recorded every piece of rock art she could find - her  research, and particularly her drawings, still provide the leading information. 

We examined almost every rock, admired single cup marks (little man made scoops) and marvelled at the odd single concentric circle and then nearly fell over ourselves as we almost missed a massive panel covered in everything - see extras. Impressive as that was - and it really was - it was this chunky little stone covered in concentric circles that stole my heart. What on earth was going on? They date from the Bronze Age ie at least 4000 years ago and this group seemed to be looking down the valley but what they represented and why they were done is open to fierce discussion. I think they qualify as abstract!

We ate cheese and biscuits in a graveyard and admired a bullaun stone and then went on for part deux of the day - a holy well expedition but I'm going to cheat and pretend that happened on Tuesday! 
Safe to say a large meal was consumed later followed by an even larger bath!