Barrow, Kilkneedan, Co. Kerry

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Barrows

Barrow, Kilkneedan, Co. Kerry

Beneath a dense block of coniferous forestry north of Killarney, there may or may not be a prehistoric burial mound.

The uncertainty is almost the point. What is known is that a cropmark, the kind of faint discolouration visible from the air when buried features affect the growth of vegetation above them, was spotted in this area and interpreted as the outline of a barrow, a term for a rounded earthen mound typically raised over a burial in the Bronze Age or earlier. Whether anything actually survives beneath the trees is another question entirely.

The potential feature was identified in 2000 by Michael Connolly, County Archaeologist with Kerry County Council, during a survey of a forty square mile area being assessed for road routing north of Killarney. The site sits on level ground at the base of a steep north-facing slope, with the Gweestin River running to the north. Access was not gained at the time of identification, and the location leaves no trace on historic maps, which complicates any confident claim about its age or even its existence as a constructed feature. By the time aerial photography was reviewed in subsequent years, the area had been obscured by forestry, suggesting the ground had been planted over, possibly destroying or concealing whatever lay beneath.

This is, in other words, a site defined largely by absence and ambiguity. The cropmark pointed to something; the plantation may have swallowed it. It remains on record as a potential rather than a confirmed monument, a bracket left open in the archaeological account of this corner of Kerry.

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Pete F
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