Enclosure, Gortderrig, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Gortderrig, Co. Kerry

On the lower northern slopes of the East Pap of Dana, one of the twin quartzite peaks in the Slieve Mish range that form one of Kerry's more mythologically charged silhouettes, a small oval arrangement of stones sits quietly in the bog, its purpose still open to question.

The enclosure is modest in scale, roughly 6.6 metres east to west and 5 metres north to south, but what makes it worth attention is less its size than its stubbornness. The large stones that define its perimeter, each about half a metre high and set with their long axes running along the boundary line, protrude above the surrounding cutaway bog as though refusing to be absorbed entirely. The level interior is hidden under heather, which gives the whole thing a slightly secretive quality.

The site sits within a wider landscape of relict field walls, the kind of fossilised agricultural network that accumulates over centuries and then gets abandoned, leaving only faint outlines for the bog to slowly swallow. Cutaway bog, where the upper layers of peat have been removed, often exposes or half-exposes features that would otherwise remain buried, which may explain why these stones remain visible at all. Enclosures of this general type can serve any number of functions across Irish prehistory and early history, from stock management to settlement boundaries to ceremonial use, and without excavation it is difficult to say more. What the record from 2000 does confirm is that the stones are large, deliberately placed, and survive in recognisable form despite the surrounding landscape doing its best to reclaim them.

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Pete F
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