Cairn, Shanakeal, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Cairns

Cairn, Shanakeal, Co. Kerry

On the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, there is a feature so reduced in archaeological description that it has been recorded simply as a mound of stones.

No elaborate classification, no confident dating, no associated mythology. Just stones, accumulated, on the land at Shanakeal.

The Dingle Peninsula Archaeological Survey, a systematic effort to document the extraordinary density of prehistoric and early historic remains across this part of Kerry, catalogued this cairn under the designation 'B', distinguishing it from at least one other feature in the immediate area. A cairn, in its broadest sense, is a deliberately constructed heap of stones, and such features appear across Ireland in contexts ranging from Neolithic burial monuments to early medieval boundary markers to simple field clearance. The honest difficulty with Shanakeal is that the surviving record does not resolve which of these possibilities applies here. The stones remain, and their purpose, age, and builders are unspecified by anything currently documented.

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