Enclosure, Derrylahan, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Derrylahan, Co. Kerry

Sitting on boggy, south-sloping pasture above the Owenreagh river in County Kerry, this small circular enclosure is the kind of structure that raises more questions than the landscape is willing to answer.

Crudely built and modest in scale, measuring roughly 5.8 metres by 5.5 metres with walls surviving to only half a metre in height, it is not the sort of monument that announces itself. What makes it quietly curious is the detail preserved within: a paved turf-platform set into the interior, suggesting that whoever built this structure had a specific, purposeful use in mind, even if that purpose is no longer obvious.

Enclosures of this type, low-walled and roughly circular, appear across the Irish uplands and boggy margins in considerable variety. Some served as animal pens, others as sheltered working spaces, and a small number may have had more ceremonial or domestic functions. The paved platform here is an unusual touch, implying some effort to create a dry, stable surface within what would have been a wet and unforgiving environment. To the east, the incomplete outline of a second, smaller enclosure, approximately 4.7 metres across, survives in rougher form, suggesting either an associated structure or an abandoned attempt at something similar. The site was recorded as part of the archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan and published by Cork University Press in 1996, a systematic effort to document the extraordinary density of monuments across this part of south Kerry.

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Pete F
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