¹Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark Harris. Slover. Ancient Irish Tales. New York: H. Holt, 1936. 328-32.

²Smith, Charles. The Ancient and Present State of the County of Kerry. Containing a Natural, Civil, Ecclesiastical, Historical and Topographical Description Thereof. Dublin: Printed for the Author, 1756. 156-59.

³O’Driscoll, J. "Head for the Hills: Nucleated Hilltop Settlement in the Irish Bronze Age." Journal of World Prehistory 36, 1–47 (2023). p. 13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-023-09172-8

⁴ James O’Driscoll (2019) "Picture Perfect: Using Drone Technology and Photogrammetry Techniques to Map the Western Stone Forts of Ireland," Journal of Field Archaeology, 44:2, 133.
According to the author, "The inland promontory fort of Knockdhu is the only example that has been excavated (Macdonald 2008; 2012). This revealed the fort was initialy constructed around the end of the Middle Bronze Age, c 1400 BC."

⁵In Raftery's (1972) classification of Irish hillforts, the 40 known examples were divided into three groups. Class 1 hillforts comprised single-walled sites. Class 2 sites were defined as widely-spaced, multi-walled defenses on hilltops and cliffs, such as Dún Aonghasa, Co. Galway, and Cahercommaun, Co. Kerry. Class 3 included inland promontory forts such as Caherconree.
Using metadata within our aerial photographs, we determined the elevation of the fort to be 615m (2,018 ft). Further to the west on the Dingle Peninsula is the Faha Promotory Fort, at 777m (2526 ft.)
Another Dingle Peninsula promontory fort, in this instance guarded on three sides by the ocean, is Dunbeg Fort.

⁶Windele, John. “Cahir Conri.” Ulster Journal of Archaeology 8 (1860): 116.
Read this article here.
Many years later, in his "Tribute to Frank Mitchell," Michael Ryan wrote, "Much has been made of Frank's often repeated wish to sell his soul for a few more years of life just to see how things were going to turn out. In The Way that I Followed, I believe he unwittingly wrote his own best epitaph. On the Dingle peninsula is Caherconree, a great inland promontory fort 600m above sea-level. Frank tried three times to climb up to it and three times he was foiled by the Kerry mist. He wrote that perhaps he should have stayed around until the fog cleared and tried again, but he added that 'a capacity to sit around is just not part of my nature'. It wasn't: but there are many people who wish, as I do, that he had curbed his impatience for just a little longer." (Ryan, Michael. “A Tribute to Frank Mitchell.” Archaeology Ireland, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring, 1998), pp. 40-41.)

⁷O’Donovan, John. The Banquet of Dun Na N-Gedh and The Battle of Magh Rath. The Irish Archaeological Society, Dublin. 1842. p. 212. Find this book online here.

⁸Westropp, Thomas Johnson. “Promontory Forts and Similar Structures in the County Kerry. Part IV. Corcaguiny (The Southern Shore) (Continued).” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 40, no. 4 (1910): 289.
Westropp wrote,  “The Ordnance Survey Maps only indicated it very slightly. O'Donovan (among whose fine qualities was certainly not that of respect for the workers who preceded him) in 1841 sneered bitterly at Smith, and denied the existence of the fort; but he did not ascend the mountain or examine anyone who had been up it.”
Read this article here.

⁹Lynch, P.J. "Caherconree, County Kerry." Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, First Quarter, 1899. 6.

¹⁰Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark Harris. Slover. Ancient Irish Tales. New York: H. Holt, 1936. 328.

¹¹Yellow Book of Lecan." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 25 Feb. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Book_of_Lecan>.

¹²Henderson, George (translator). "The Feast of Bricriu" (Fled Bricrend), Book of the Dun Cow. Medieval Irish Series, 1999.
The story begins with a dispute as to who was entitled to the champion's share at the feasts of the Red Branch knights at Emain Macha (Navan Fort). The argument, however, was to be decided at Caherconree. The deeds of daring performed by the three knights, Laeghaire Buadhach, Conall Cearnach, and notably Cuchulainn, create one of the wildest and most imaginative of the ancient tales.

¹³Horgan, Mathew, John Windle, and Edward Vaughan Kenealy. Cahir Conri a Metrical Legend. Cork: P.J. Crowe, 1860. xxv.

¹⁴Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark Harris Slover. Ancient Irish Tales. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1936. 332.

¹⁵"Cú Roí." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 25 Feb. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cú_Ro%C3%AD>.

¹⁶Theophilus O'Flanagan, Tranansactions of The Gaelic Society of Dublin, V. 1, 1808, pp. 50-1.
Read this text here.
Note: The image of a page from the Yellow Book of Lecan is from the "Irish Script on Screen" (ISOS) project of the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. The Yellow Book of Lecan is in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, MS 1318. The page shown contains columns 955 and 956. The Tragic Death of Cu Roi MacDaire is actually in column 776, not available at this resource.

¹⁷Jackson, Kenneth Hurlstone. A Celtic Miscellany; Translations from the Celtic Literatures. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971. 27-9.

¹⁸Lynch, P.J. "Caherconree, County Kerry." Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, First Quarter, 1899. 16.

¹⁹Lynch, P.J. "A Relic of Caherconree." The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Fifth 40.4 (1910): 357-60.
"Through the kindness of Mr. Foley I have been able to examine the stone, and take the photograph which accompanies these notes. It is a trough, cut out of a stone, which measures 4 feet 4 inches by 3 feet 3 inches on the outside, and 1 foot 1 inch in thickness. It has always been known as "Finn Mac Cumhaill's Saucer." Its history, as far as I could learn, is that it was at Caherconree-where it may be presumed it got its name- up to the year 1830, or about that time, when it was brought down from the mountain by some of the men of this district, and presented to Mr. Michael Foley, of Anglont, who was the grandfather of the present owner...The trough is of the red sandstone of the mountain. The sinking is regularly cut to about 7 inches deep, forming a vessel of that depth, as shown by the sections, and 3 feet 3 inches long by 2 feet 2 inches wide, capable of holding about twenty-five gallons. In later years its earlier associations would appear to have been forgotten, and at one time it was utilized for farm purposes. At this time, Mr. Foley informed me, a hole was formed in one end near the bottom, and an overflow notch cut on the top; otherwise it has suffered little injury."

²⁰Click here for the archaeology bibliiography.

²¹O’Driscoll, James. “Head for the Hills: Nucleated Hilltop Settlement in the Irish Bronze Age.” Journal of World Prehistory 36, 1–47 (2023). p. 17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-023-09172-8
The author writes, "The deep peat deposits (over 0.7 m in depth in places) in the interior of the fort have almost certainly obscured our record of this settlement, which may be much more extensive."
Elsewhere he reports that his photogrammetry work didn't point out any possible structures in the fort's interior, but that the area had been cleared of scree and loose stones.

²²O’Driscoll, James. “A Case Study for Landscape Applications of Drone and Photogrammetry Techniques: Faha and Caherconree Hilforts, Co. Kerry.”
Journal of the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society, Series 2 2018. V. 18. p. 50.

²³O’Driscoll, James. “Picture Perfect: Using Drone Technology and Photogrammetry Techniques to Map the Western Stone Forts of Ireland."
Journal of Field Archaeology, 44:2, 126-146. p. 135.
The author writes, "Using aspect analysis, we can see that there are subtle and evenly spaced depressions in the northern section of the inner wall. They are approximately 4.6–6.1 m apart, and could represent evidence that the hillfort was constructed by groups or gangs of people, with each gang (or every season) constructing a section of the defenses that would later be joined together."

²⁴O’Driscoll, James. “A Case Study for Landscape Applications of Drone and Photogrammetry Techniques: Faha and Caherconree Hilforts, Co. Kerry.”
Journal of the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society, Series 2 2018. V. 18. p. 44.
The author writes, "The slope model was useful in helping to define the possible outer enclosing elements. The northern section of this feature is still visible on the ground and consists of a 3m wide low-rise bank running in-line with the extant inner wall for a length of 32m. The feature terminates in-line with the corresponding entrance to the inner bank. However, the feature is faintly visible in the slope model further to the south, where it stays on average 14m from the inner wall. There is also a 4m wide break in this feature which corresponds with break in the inner wall."

²⁵O’Driscoll, James. “Picture Perfect: Using Drone Technology and Photogrammetry Techniques to Map the Western Stone Forts of Ireland.”
Journal of Field Archaeology, 44:2, 126-146. p. 135.
The author writes, "LCP analysis is used to generate the optimum path of travel between two chosen points. To pass between these points involves traversing terrain as well as natural and cultural features that impede movement. These impediments are classified and given a cost in the model, producing a 'cost-surface'; the program then chooses the path that accumulates the least cost connecting each point." (p. 128)

²⁶O’Driscoll, James. “A Case Study for Landscape Applications of Drone and Photogrammetry Techniques: Faha and Caherconree Hilforts, Co. Kerry.”
Journal of the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society, Series 2 2018. V. 18. p. 47.

The author writes in a different article, "Viewshed analysis is a technique that aims to 'identify those areas that can or cannot be seen from a single (or a set of) viewpoint(s) within a digital model of a terrain, either by calculating line-of-sights between pairs of point locations or via viewshed generation' (Paliou 2013: 2). Wheatley and Gillings (2000: 1) suggest that viewshed analysis is the most unique and valuable GIS application for archaeologists." 9O’Driscoll, James. “Picture Perfect: Using Drone Technology and Photogrammetry Techniques to Map the Western Stone Forts of Ireland.”
Journal of Field Archaeology, 44:2, 126-146. p. 128.)

²⁷Windele, John. “Cahir Conri.” Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 1860, First Series, Vol. 8 (1860), p. 116.

²⁸Photographs of the author made during his first visit to Caherconree (1978) and his most recent (2024) may be seen here.In his moving tribute to archaeologist Frank Mitchell, Michael Ryan describes how Mitchell “…tried three times to climb up to [Caherconree] and three times he was foiled by the Kerry mist. He wrote that perhaps he should have stayed around until the fog cleared and tried again, but he added that 'a capacity to sit around is just not part of my nature.’”

²⁹Horgan, Mathew, John Windle, and Edward Vaughan Kenealy. Cahir Conri a Metrical Legend. Cork: P.J. Crowe, 1860. 24.