Should 6,000 year old Mayo Boheh Stone art be better protected?

Older than the pyramids,the publicly-owned ‘jewel of the Clew Bay archaeological trail’ is stuck in interstate agency limbo

By Jack Good Published 25th Aug 2026, 11:14 BST Michael Gibbons explaining the importance of the Boheh Stone | Mayo News Older than the pyramids,the publicly-owned ‘jewel of the Clew Bay archaeological trail’ is stuck in interstate agency limbo Sign up to our Mayo Live newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know you can manage your profile, and explore all of the available newsletters from Mayo Live within your account.

It was thirty five years ago that it finally made sense for Westport man Gerry Bracken.

The Bohea Stone, or ' St Patrick 's Chair' as it's locally known, is an ancient druidic stone, inscribed with circles that indicate it was associated with the worship of the sun. There is also a single cross engraved into the stone.

In the early 1990s, Bracken, a gifted archaeologist, began to suspect there was a deliberate relationship between the 6,000 year old Bohea stone and Croagh Patrick , as the stone is lined up perfectly with the iconic mountain.

According to his friend Sean O'Malley, Bracken must have been out to the site one hundred times. He cycled the eight kilometers from Westport again and again, watching the horizon, until he finally caught the moment he was looking for on August 24, 1991.

“The people of Mayo have been with me every step of the way” : Gena Heraty No plans to develop 6,000 year old Mayo 'Rolling Sun' Boheh Stone site - Mayo County Council His discovery would become known as the Rolling Sun. On that fateful night, the sun didn’t just simply set behind the mountain ― it appeared to touch the summit and then spiral down the northern face, rolling along the slope before disappearing.

Further investigation would uncover that the same phenomenon happens on both August 24 and April 18 each year, with August being the reaping season and April marking the planting season.

O'Malley says that as far as anyone knows, it is the only case in Ireland where this has been spotted, where the sun just sets on the mountain and rolls down the side. Westport's Rolling Sun Festival, held in October, takes its name directly from the discovery.

It is called the Bohea Stone ― or, to generations of pilgrims who christianised it, St Patrick's Chair. Strip away the later name and what remains is one of the most significant pieces of prehistoric art in Ireland: a broad outcrop almost entirely covered in cupmarks ringed by 250 circles, along with a scattering of the rarer keyhole motifs. The carvings belong to the same late Stone Age and Early Bronze Age tradition that produced the famous spirals at Newgrange, cut into the rock with nothing more than a narrow chisel of quartz or porcellanite.

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For archaeologist Michael Gibbons, the alignment turns the stone from a curiosity into something closer to a sacred instrument, positioned to watch a solar event that people were marking long before Christianity arrived in Ireland. Standing at the site, he describes the sun appearing to set on the mountain's summit and spiral down its beautiful north face ― a spectacle he sees as part of what he calls a "magical religious landscape centred on Croagh Patrick.”

In his view, the carvings represent something rarer than the county's many megalithic tombs: a direct, personal expression of art in the Irish landscape, separate from the monumental architecture of the dead. He ranks it among the top five Neolithic rock art sites in the country, and notes that while Mayo is rich in tombs, sites like this ― where the carving itself is the monument ― are conspicuously few.

Gibbons also points to a longer afterlife for the stone. He believes it's very likely the outcrop was recognised as a pagan shrine well into the early Christian period, before being folded into the story of St Patrick and absorbed into the pilgrim route now known as the Tóchar Phádraig, which runs from Ballintubber Abbey to the summit of Croagh Patrick itself. Bronze Age carvers, early Christian pilgrims and early medieval walkers all left their mark on the same patch of ground ― what Gibbons calls a timescape of Irish religious belief, layered onto a single rock.

That pilgrim route has its own more recent history . Sean O’Malley credits an Englishman, Don Gibbons ― a former RAF pilot said to have flown for Montgomery during the Second World War ― with quietly allowing walkers and pilgrims onto his land, letting them picnic and use his toilets at a time when there was no formal path at all. It was that access, arranged with the priest who developed the modern Tóchar Phádraig walk, that first drew local attention back to the stone and helped set in motion the interest that Gerry Bracken would later turn into a genuine archaeological discovery.

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For all its significance, the Bohea Stone remains in an oddly precarious position ― protected by reputation more than by any physical safeguard.

Gibbons has argued for basic conservation measures: a raised viewing platform so visitors can look down on the 250 carvings, which are highly sensitive to erosion, rather than walk across them, water on site, and a requirement that people cross the stone in bare feet rather than boots, after concerns that pilgrims' hiking gear ― and even sharp trekking poles ― were wearing down the carved surfaces.

He has also floated a more ambitious vision for the wider site: clearing space for a car park and a small interpretation centre, similar to the visitor facilities at Carrowmore, to properly present what he calls “the jewel” of the Clew Bay archaeological trail.

TOWNLAND TALES: Bounding around Boheh The site and adjoining house next to it were purchased by Mayo County Council as far back as 2011, which prompted local hopes that an interpretative centre would be built.

In the years since, the disused house, formerly owned by Don Gibbons, has become more derelict and there are still no plans for a centre to be built.

The obstacle, according to Fine Gael councillor Peter Flynn, isn't vision but bureaucracy. He says the Office of Public Works has agreed in principle to take the site into state care, but the transfer can't proceed until Mayo County Council formally registers the land in the OPW 's name ― something he says has been delayed for at least three years. Flynn has pressed for an update at council level, frustrated that a straightforward transfer between two state bodies has stalled for so long, leaving what he calls a monument thousands of years old to deteriorate in plain sight while the paperwork sits unresolved.

Cllr Flynn’s request for an update echoed previous calls more than five years ago for an update from the local authority on plans for the site of the historical monument.

However, the OPW have told The Mayo News that it is “unaware of any proposal relating to these lands.”

The state body is responsible for the conservation and presentation of over 780 National Monuments, which includes the Boheh Stone (National Monument No. 530). The OPW states that the land surrounding the Stone is already in the ownership of the State through Mayo County Council.

The OPW also confirmed that while it intends to carry out minor maintenance works at the site before the end of the year, archaeological excavations will not be required.

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The Bracken family, meanwhile, has taken their concern directly to the state. The Irish Times reported that Emily Bracken, Gerry Bracken's daughter, wrote to the National Monuments Service calling for a ministerial protection order to prevent further harm to the site. Her letter pointed to the local authority's addition of a step at the stone, paired with the complete absence of any protective walkway or barrier around the carvings themselves, as amounting to serious neglect of the monument.

It is a strange fate for a site of this importance: a stone old enough to predate the pyramids, carved by people whose names are lost, aligned with an astronomical precision that took modern observers thousands of years to notice ― and yet still waiting, in 2026 terms, on a land registration form to move from one government department's books to another's.

For now, the Bohea Stone continues to do what it has always done. Twice a year, the sun still finds its mark and rolls down the face of Croagh Patrick exactly as it has since before anyone was carving circles into rock to remember it.