Encounter with An Chailleach Bhéarra

It’s been hard to write this article. The experience of the encounter was enough for me to write this.

Who is An Chailleach Bhéarra? Is she a stone? A mythic figure? A folk tale? How is it that she’s living in the land?

She brings so much history with her too. Her lament is written down in Irish manuscripts, perhaps dating to around year 900.

An Chailleach Bhéarra is a living symbol. If you let it, your Irish language journey brings you in touch with something deeply meaningful.

Encountering an Chailleach

It’s was a warm day on Béarra, Co. Cork.

I stroll up the small winding sloped road. I’ve come from visiting the Ballycrovane ogham stone.

The slanting sign points the way. I walk through the gap in the wall.

I can see the stone. She’s looking out over the bay and the rest of the mythic Béarra.

I can immediately see the rough, almost pimply surface of this unusual stone.

In the Old Irish poem Aithbe dam bés mora / The lament of the Old Woman of Beare, a poem found in manuscripts, she laments her youth. She drank with kings, and now finds herself alone and looking out at sea. She talks about the ebb and the flooding of the sea.

As I approach carefully, I jot down words like:

A local story says that this stone is the Cailleach, cursed by Saint Caitiarin after she ran off with his prayerbook. This might point to the tension with early Christianity and the archetypes that were seen to be living in the land since before then.

People have left piseoga with the Cailleach (please consider avoiding plastic offerings). A generation ago it would’ve been coins left with her, but now it’s little natural offerings.

I sit by the Cailleach as she watches out to the water. I start to write a poem.

A couple of months later I return, and read the poem I had started writing on my first visit.

Something of an offering back to the Cailleach.

Eoin shared and explored the poem at a Ceardlann Mhíosúil monthly workshop in August 2026. Gaeilge Gach Lá Members have access to the recording of the workshop.

Eoin Ó Conchúir is the author of Seacht mBealach / Seven Ways: A field guide to Gaeilge Gach Lá. It’s published by Bitesize Irish Press, and it can be ordered from Bitesize Irish.

Further references:

• The text of the lament is found on CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork
• Dr. Sharon Blackie: Greening the Hag
• The prolific author Kerry author Brendan Kennelly published a beautiful poetic adaptation of the lament. It’s found in his book Love of Ireland: Poems from the Irish.