Enclosure, Derrylahan, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Enclosures
On the western slope of Knockbrack in south-west Kerry, a small semicircular enclosure sits in rough pasture, half-absorbed by overgrowth and the kind of loose stones that accumulate when a structure has been quietly falling apart for a very long time.
It is easy to walk past, easier still to mistake for a natural feature of the hillside, particularly where outcropping rock blurs the boundary between what was built and what simply grew there.
The enclosure measures roughly four metres across its north-south axis. Its western and eastern sides are defined by a drystone wall, a construction technique in which stones are stacked without mortar, relying on the weight and fit of the material itself for stability. That wall stands around 0.8 metres high and is nearly a metre thick, built from random rubble rather than any dressed or coursed stonework. The southern boundary is formed not by a continuation of the same wall but by a pre-existing or co-opted field boundary, a longer linear run of random rubble stretching ten metres east to west and standing somewhat higher at 1.2 metres. The combination of these two different boundary types, one clearly enclosure-specific, the other a field wall pressed into service, gives the structure an improvised or adaptive quality. No date has been established for it, and its original purpose remains unrecorded.