Enclosure, Coomclogherane, Co. Kerry

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Coomclogherane, Co. Kerry

On the south-east-facing slopes of Knockbrack Mountain in Coomclogherane, a small rectangle of tumbled drystone wall sits at the foot of a steep scarp, its rough and irregular stones spilling downslope as if the hillside itself is gradually reclaiming them.

The enclosure measures just over six metres east to west and less than three metres north to south, its walls surviving to roughly eighty centimetres in both thickness and height. It is not a dramatic ruin by any conventional measure, which is partly what makes it worth paying attention to.

What gives the site a layer of quiet interest is the gap between what is visible on the ground and what older maps record. The Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1895 shows a square sheepfold of around eight metres across at this location, divided into two rectangular compartments on an east-west axis. A sheepfold of this kind would have been a working enclosure used to pen and sort livestock during gathering or shearing on the upland pasture. The structure on the ground today is considerably smaller and less regular than the mapped feature, suggesting either substantial collapse over the past century or that the relationship between the two is more complicated than it first appears. Drystone construction, which uses no mortar and relies entirely on the careful stacking of uncut or minimally shaped stone, is particularly vulnerable to gradual displacement, especially on sloping ground where water and frost can work loose stones over generations.

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Pete F
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