Enclosure, Bunbinnia, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Enclosures
On the south-east facing slopes of Broaghnabinnia, above the deep cut of Cummeenduff Glen in south Kerry, a cluster of drystone structures sits on a rocky plateau without so much as a mark on the Ordnance Survey maps.
Three enclosures, built without mortar, have quietly occupied this hillside for an unknown span of time, seen by relatively few people and recorded by fewer still.
The largest of the three is a roughly built subcircular enclosure, meaning its walls curve around without forming a perfect circle, measuring approximately 9.5 metres by 6.8 metres on the inside. Its walls survive to about 0.7 metres in height and 0.75 metres in width, which is modest but enough to read clearly on the ground. Immediately to the east sit two smaller subrectangular enclosures, each roughly the size of a small room, with internal dimensions of around 4.8 by 2.1 metres and 4.4 by 2.2 metres respectively. These two are thought to be possible hut sites, the kind of simple shelters used seasonally by people working upland grazing ground, and they may be more recent in date than the larger western enclosure. The complex was documented by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan in their 1996 archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula, published by Cork University Press, which brought together records of just this sort of unassuming but genuinely puzzling upland feature.
The site sits within a landscape that rewards careful attention. Cummeenduff Glen, below, is a glacially carved valley on the Iveragh Peninsula, and the plateau above it would have offered both visibility and a degree of shelter. Visitors approaching from below should expect rough, wet ground and the absence of any marked path or signage, given that the enclosures do not appear on standard maps. The walls are low and the structures are easy to miss without knowing roughly where to look on the hillside.