Enclosure, Coolnagoppoge, Co. Kerry

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Coolnagoppoge, Co. Kerry

A low oval of drystone walling poking through the surface of a bog is easy to walk past without a second glance, yet the enclosure at Coolnagoppoge repays close attention.

On a north-facing slope in the valley of the Glashanaglaragh stream, what survives is a roughly constructed wall, now partially collapsed, tracing an oval roughly eleven metres east to west and seven metres north to south. The wall is modest, only about half a metre thick and four-tenths of a metre high where it clears the bog surface, but along the south-eastern to south-western arc it sits on a natural scarp face nearly a metre tall, which would have added considerably to its effective height on that side.

What makes the construction quietly thoughtful is the way its builders dealt with the hillslope. The northern portion of the interior has been built up to a height of around sixty centimetres, levelling the floor against the gradient of the ground and creating a usable, roughly flat space within the enclosure. This kind of practical earthwork, small in scale but deliberate in execution, is characteristic of early agricultural or settlement enclosures, where the primary concern was simply making a defined, functional area on difficult terrain. The site does not exist in isolation either. Another enclosure lies just one metre to the west, and a hut site, the remains of a small habitation structure, sits approximately twelve metres to the north-north-east. Together they suggest a cluster of activity rather than a single isolated feature, though when people lived and worked here, and for how long, the surviving remains do not say.

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Pete F
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