Enclosure, Curragh, Co. Kerry

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Curragh, Co. Kerry

In a field of improved wet pasture in the townland of Curragh, County Kerry, the ground holds the faint outline of something that was once deliberately constructed.

What survives is barely legible: a semi-circular, slightly sunken area measuring roughly 14 metres north to south and 7 metres east to west, defined on one side by a low internal scarp and on the other by the remnants of a bank that has been almost entirely levelled. The bank's interior height is just 15 centimetres, its exterior a mere 10. This is archaeology at its most unassuming, the kind of monument that a casual walker would cross without a second thought.

Enclosures of this kind are among the most common, and most poorly understood, monument types in the Irish landscape. They could represent the remains of a ringfort, a form of enclosed farmstead used extensively from the early medieval period onward, or something considerably older; without excavation it is impossible to say. What makes this particular example quietly notable is how thoroughly the modern landscape has worked against it. A townland boundary running north to south, roughly two metres wide, cuts directly across the eastern portion of the feature, and a land drain nearly 1.2 metres deep has been cut through the same area. Whatever may have survived on the eastern side is now obscured entirely by dense vegetation. Ordnance Survey historic mapping shows no feature at this location, which suggests the monument either escaped the surveyors' notice or had already been reduced to near-invisibility by the time they passed through.

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Pete F
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