Enclosure, Farrannacarriga, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Enclosures
Beneath a level patch of ground on the southern slope of a low hill in County Kerry, two stone chambers sit connected by a low passage, unseen and unmarked.
Above them, there is nothing to suggest anything lies below, just a flattened terrace that looks slightly out of place in an otherwise sloping field overlooking the Anascaul valley.
The enclosure that once stood here was a univallate ringfort, meaning it was defined by a single earthen or stone bank, a common form of early medieval farmstead across Ireland. It appeared on Ordnance Survey maps and was a recorded feature of the landscape until 1982, when it was levelled. The demolition inadvertently exposed a souterrain, an underground stone structure of the kind typically associated with ringforts and used, it is thought, for storage or refuge. This one consisted of two drystone chambers joined by a low connecting passage. Though it was recorded at the time and appears to have survived intact underground, no marker or surface feature indicates where exactly it lies. The site sits on the southern side of a gentle hill, with views down into the Anascaul valley, and the only physical trace of everything that once occupied this spot is the unnaturally flat platform left behind after the enclosure was cleared.