Enclosure, Carrigeendaniel, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Carrigeendaniel, Co. Kerry

At Carrigeendaniel in County Kerry, a low ring of limestone rubble and earth sits quietly in a landscape of exposed bedrock, enclosing a roughly oval space about the size of a modest suburban garden.

What makes it worth pausing over is precisely what it lacks. There is no ditch, either inside or outside the bank, and no trace of the architectural features you would expect from a cashel or caher, the dry-stone enclosures that are a familiar sight across Kerry and the wider Irish countryside. Something was built here, and enclosed deliberately, but it does not fit the usual categories.

The enclosing bank stands just 0.6 metres high on its outer face and a slightly more modest 0.4 metres on the interior, with an average width of about 3 metres. It encloses an area measuring 41 metres east to west and 38 metres north to south. In places, the builders appear to have worked the natural limestone pavement directly into the circuit of the bank rather than quarrying and transporting fresh material, a practical decision that ties the structure closely to the specific geology underfoot. Inside the enclosure, a stony oval area measuring roughly 5 metres by 4.2 metres may be the remains of a central house, though the word "may" carries real weight here; the evidence is suggestive rather than conclusive. The site was examined as part of research into the prehistoric settlement of the Lee Valley near Tralee, carried out by Michael Connolly for a doctoral thesis submitted to University College Cork in 2008, which placed this modest feature within a broader landscape of early occupation in the region.

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