Hungry Hill

This article is about the Irish hill. For other articles, see Hungry Hill (disambiguation).

Hungry Hill
Cnoc Daod
File:Hungry hill.jpg
Highest point
Elevation
Listing	Marilyn, Hewitt
Coordinates
Geography
Beara Peninsula, Ireland
Parent range	Caha Mountains
OSI/OSNI grid	V761497

Hungry Hill (Irish: Cnoc Daod) is a mountain on the Beara Peninsula in the Republic of Ireland.

Etymology

The first part of the Irish name Cnoc Daod means "hill". The second part may be a dialectal variant of déad, meaning "tooth", "set of teeth" or "jaw". It has been anglicized as Knockdhead and Knockday.

Geography

File:Cnoc Daod - Hungry Hill - geograph.org.uk - 275340.jpg

Hill's top

With a height of 685 metres (2,247 ft) it is the highest peak of the Caha Mountains and the 130th highest in Ireland. Hungry Hill lies on the border of counties Cork and Kerry, although the peak is on the Cork side.

There is a cairn at the summit and a number of standing stones to the south and east of the mountain. At its eastern foot are two lakes — Coomadayallig and Coomarkane — which both drain into the Mare's Tail waterfalls. This is the highest waterfall in Ireland and the UK.

In popular culture

Hungry Hill (novel) is the title and setting of a 1943 novel by English author, Daphne du Maurier. Her descriptions of the mountain and environs are markedly similar to the actual location. In the novel, the name of the mountain is metaphoric, as during the course of the novel the mountain seems to ‘swallow’ successive generations of the Broderick family, who own and mine the mountain. The story is reputedly based on the Irish ancestors of Daphne du Maurier’s friend Christopher Puxley.

See also

• List of mountains in Ireland

References

Media related to at Wikimedia Commons