1,400-year-old brooch found in turf fire

THE ritual of clearing out her turf-fired Stanley range turned to delight for Kerry woman, Sheila Edgeworth, when she discovered a 1,400-year-old brooch – dating from the early Christian period – among the ashes.

Archaeologists believe the brooch would have been fastened to the cloak of a clergyman and was probably dropped on a forest road in north Kerry which eventually became bog land.

After lying undiscovered for 1,400 years, the brooch was cut from the family’s bog at Tullahennel last summer, and ended up being burned in the range of Sheila and her husband, Pat Joe’s home in Martara, Ballylongford.