Cairn, Clahane, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Cairns

Cairn, Clahane, Co. Kerry

On a craggy spur just west of the summit of Knockawaddra mountain, at the eastern end of the Slieve Mish range in County Kerry, there is a cairn so thoroughly absorbed by peat that nobody can say for certain how large it actually is.

What is visible measures ten metres across in both directions and rises to 1.68 metres on its northern side, but the peat cover is substantial enough that the true extent of the structure remains genuinely unknown. Only excavation or the removal of that accumulated bog material would settle the question.

The cairn is built from red sandstone slabs and boulders, some up to half a metre in length, and it appears to have been deliberately positioned against an existing rock outcrop on its southern side, with the crag effectively forming part of the structure's base or back wall. There is some evidence of a revetment along the northern face, suggesting a degree of deliberate construction rather than a simple accumulation of stone. Cairns of this type are prehistoric funerary or ceremonial monuments, typically mounds of stone raised over burials or as landscape markers, and their placement on elevated ground was rarely accidental. This one commands a panoramic sweep across the Lee Valley, Tralee Bay, and the Stacks mountains to the north, with the Maine Valley, Castlemaine Harbour, and the MacGillycuddy Reeks visible to the south. Whoever built it chose the site with an obvious awareness of the terrain around them.

The cairn was documented by Michael Connolly during a survey of the Lee Valley area carried out in 1996 and 1997. Its exact age remains unrecorded in what has been observed above ground, and the peat that obscures its full dimensions also preserves whatever lies beneath from casual disturbance.

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Pete F
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