Bastioned fort, Kilmore, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Coastal Defenses
Between a ringfort and something harder to categorise, the site at Kilmore in north Kerry carries an unusual feature that sets it apart from the more familiar circular enclosures scattered across the Irish landscape.
Sitting on a gentle rise with the land falling away to the north-east, the fort's most distinctive element is not the inner bank at all but a three-pointed outer enclosure that wraps around the northern and eastern sides, giving the whole complex an angular, almost fortified appearance quite unlike the typical rounded earthworks of the region. It is this pointed or bastioned form that makes the site genuinely puzzling, suggesting that what survives today is probably not the product of a single period of construction.
The 1841 to 1842 Ordnance Survey map records the site as a circular enclosure, with the word 'cave' noted inside, almost certainly referring to a souterrain, an underground passage or chamber of the kind built throughout early medieval Ireland, typically used for storage or as a place of refuge. By the time the later edition maps were drawn in 1915 to 1916, the western section of the fort had already been levelled, and what remains today is a semi-circular stone bank enclosing the collapsed remains of that souterrain. The three-pointed outer enclosure, set roughly eight metres beyond the inner bank and running from the north through east to south-east before curving back into it, stands only about 0.3 metres above the surrounding ground externally, with a base width of two metres; modest dimensions, but enough to preserve a shape that does not fit neatly into any single period or function. Archaeologist C. Toal, writing in the North Kerry Archaeological Survey published in 1995, noted that the angular outer enclosure could possibly suggest later activity at the site, meaning the bastioned form may reflect an adaptation or addition made well after the original enclosure was constructed.
A trackway runs immediately to the west of the site, which may help orient a visitor approaching across the rise. The remains are subtle at ground level, particularly the outer enclosure, and patience and a low afternoon light are likely to make the bank profiles most legible in the landscape.