Paps of Anu
mountain
The Paps of Anu (Irish: Dá Chích Anann, "the breasts of Anu") are a pair of breast-shaped mountains near Killarney in County Kerry, Ireland. They are the highest peaks of Derrynasaggart Mountains. The eastern summit, The Paps East, is 694 metres (2,277 ft) high and the western top, The Paps West is 690 metres (2,260 ft) high.
Anu is believed to be an ancient mother goddess. Cormac's Glossary describes Anu or Danu as "the mother of the gods of Ireland". On each summit is a prehistoric cairn, which may be miniature passage graves or house burial cists reaching back to 2,500 BC. The cairn on the eastern Pap is slightly larger, with a height of 4 metres (13 ft) and diameter of 16 metres (52 ft). They have been described as "stone nipples on the great breasts of the mother goddess". A line of stones, known as Na Fiacla, connects the two tops and is believed to have been a processional route. Archeologist Frank Coyne suggested that the mountains were seen as sacred and said "There is little doubt that the mountaintops of both The Paps…were utilized for ritual in prehistory". To the ancients, the mountains reinforced the idea that the Earth was a motherly body.
“Paps of Anu” enters the record as mountain. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Paps and mountain can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Paps of Anu” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Paps and mountain provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q955759. VIAF identifies the subject as 315529096. Authority coordinates are 52.016, -9.269. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paps of Anu” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.