Enclosure, Kilkeana, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Kilkeana, Co. Kerry

On a south-facing slope in Kilkeana, County Kerry, there is a site that exists more as a cartographic memory than a physical presence.

Marked on the 1895 Ordnance Survey six-inch map as a tiny square enclosure measuring roughly three metres across, it has since disappeared entirely from the visible landscape, leaving behind no wall line, no earthwork, no trace that the ground itself will confirm.

The enclosure, if that is indeed what it was, is remarkably small. At around three metres square, it falls well below the scale of the ring forts and cashels that characterise early medieval settlement across Kerry, and its original purpose remains unclear. What is known is that the surrounding land has been substantially altered in recent times. Surface drainage work has been carried out across the hillside, and field fences, boulders, and loose material have been cleared away. In the approximate location where the map suggests the enclosure once lay, there is now a mound of field-clearance stones, the kind of accumulated heap that results when generations of gathered rock are deposited in one convenient spot. It is possible that the enclosure's fabric was simply absorbed into that process, its stones gathered up and piled with everything else during land improvement works.

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Pete F
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