Enclosure, Creeveen, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Enclosures
At first glance, a low ring of earth and boulders in a Kerry field might seem like nothing more than the land asserting itself.
But the small enclosure at Creeveen, sitting just south of a stream on the Iveragh Peninsula, holds something a little more specific inside it: a circular stone feature that archaeologists believe may have served as a turf-drying platform. That detail is easy to overlook, and easy to pass by, but it points to the ordinary rhythms of rural life in a way that grander monuments rarely do.
The enclosure is modest in scale, roughly subcircular in plan and averaging about seven metres across internally, bounded by a bank of earth and boulders that has settled low over time. It sits approximately 650 metres south-east of a companion enclosure, the two sites occupying the same stretch of landscape in a part of south Kerry that has been documented as part of the archaeological survey carried out by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan, published by Cork University Press in 1996. The interior feature, a low stone structure of circular plan, is the more intriguing element. Turf-drying platforms were practical fixtures in areas where peat was cut as fuel, allowing freshly cut sods to be stacked and aired before use. The tentative identification here suggests a working enclosure rather than a ceremonial or defensive one, connected to the seasonal labour of cutting and processing turf from the bogland that covers much of this peninsula.