Enclosure, Baile An Lochaigh, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Enclosures
On a level, unusually rock-free patch of ground near the upper Feohanagh river in County Kerry, a small cluster of ancient enclosures sits quietly beside what remains of an early hut.
What makes the arrangement worth a second look is its compactness and its geometry: two enclosures laid out in a deliberate sequence, one wedge-shaped and one roughly square, with the larger butting directly against the northern wall of the hut as though the whole group was conceived together rather than accumulated over time.
The site lies about thirty metres west of the Feohanagh river, on ground that would have offered early inhabitants a rare practical advantage in this part of the Dingle Peninsula, where exposed rock and uneven terrain are the norm rather than the exception. The larger of the two enclosures is wedge-shaped, measuring roughly four metres in length and narrowing from three metres at its widest to one and a half metres at its narrowest. Immediately to its west sits a second enclosure, approximately two metres square. Enclosures of this kind, when found adjoining a hut, are generally interpreted as small stock pens or working areas attached to a domestic structure, though without excavation their precise function remains open. The site was recorded and described by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, a landmark study of one of the most archaeologically dense landscapes in Ireland.