Mound, Blennerville, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Ritual/Ceremonial
On the south-eastern edge of Blennerville, tucked into the north-east corner of a small square field, three low earthen mounds sit in a loose ring around a central hollow.
The arrangement is quietly puzzling. None of the mounds is dramatic; each rises only between 0.6 and 0.8 metres from the ground, and together they form an elongated enclosure that opens to the east-north-east. What makes the site unusual is that relationship between mound and hollow: the depression at the centre, measuring roughly 6.8 metres by 5.6 metres, is thought to be natural in origin, but its position within the ring of raised ground suggests it was deliberately incorporated, perhaps used as a trough or collecting basin of some kind.
The three mounds diminish slightly in size from north to south, ranging from 7 metres by 5.5 metres at the largest to 6 metres by 4.3 metres at the smallest. The site was examined in the context of prehistoric settlement patterns in the Lee Valley by Michael Connolly, whose 2008 doctoral thesis for University College Cork placed it within a broader landscape of early activity around Tralee. Blennerville itself sits at the head of Tralee Bay, and the low-lying ground around it has long attracted human activity, though the precise date and function of these particular mounds remains unclear. The combination of natural hollow and surrounding earthworks is suggestive of a fulacht fia type arrangement, where burnt stone and water were used for cooking or other heat-related processes, though that identification has not been confirmed for this site.