Dunmore Cave — the massacre of 928

OVERVIEW

Dunmore Cave — from the Irish Dún Mór, great fort — is a limestone solutional cave at Ballyfoyle in County Kilkenny, formed in Lower Carboniferous limestone of the Clogrenan Formation. It is a show cave with lit walkways and a visitor centre, run by the Office of Public Works, and it is unusually well known for its archaeology.

HISTORY

The Annals of the Four Masters record that in 928 Vikings from Dublin killed a thousand people at Dearc Fearna — the cave of the alders — usually identified as Dunmore. The tradition was that people had taken refuge in the cave and that fires were lit at the entrance to smother them. Excavation found human bones, mostly of women and children, consistent with the account; in 1999 and again in 2000s a hoard of silver and bronze ornaments of the Viking period was recovered from a cleft in the rock.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The cave is not on the map as a ghost story but as a recorded atrocity with the physical evidence still coming out of the ground. Visitors and staff describe the lower chambers as oppressive, and the OPW tells the 928 story straight. The entry records a place where a written annal, a body of bone and a hoard of silver agree with each other — rare in this file.

VISITING

Open as an OPW show cave with guided tours; admission charge; steep steps, cold and wet. Signposted off the N78 north of Kilkenny city.