Barrow (Ring Barrow), Ballyseedy, Co. Kerry

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Barrow (Ring Barrow), Ballyseedy, Co. Kerry

In a silage field in County Kerry, a prehistoric burial monument quietly goes about the business of being ancient, largely unremarked by the cattle and machinery that have shared its space for generations.

The ring barrow at Ballyseedy sits just to the east of a tree plantation locally known as Monument Wood, a name that hints at an older awareness of what lies nearby, even if the monument itself has been worn down considerably by centuries of agricultural activity.

A ring barrow is a burial mound of the Bronze Age, typically consisting of a raised central platform, a surrounding ditch or fosse, and an outer earthen bank, the whole arrangement functioning as a kind of enclosed funerary space. The example at Ballyseedy follows this form precisely, though in a diminished state. The central circular platform measures 17 metres in diameter and is encircled by a fosse roughly 4 metres wide, with an outer bank extending a further 6 metres, bringing the overall diameter of the monument to around 37 metres. The bank survives to only about 0.30 metres above the external ground surface, and the central platform rises a mere 0.30 metres above the base of the fosse. No entrance gap or causeway was identified during survey. The worn condition of the site is consistent with its setting: the field has clearly seen sustained cultivation over a long period, and repeated tillage and silage production have gradually abraded what would once have been a more pronounced earthwork. Michael Connolly recorded the monument during a survey of the Lee Valley area carried out in 1996 and 1997, by which point the site had already been reduced to something that rewards closer inspection rather than first glance.

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