Enclosure, Derrymaclavlode, Co. Kerry

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Derrymaclavlode, Co. Kerry

On a south-east-facing slope above the Clydagh River valley in County Kerry, a small D-shaped enclosure sits in rough, heather-clad hill pasture, doing very little to announce itself.

Its drystone wall, roughly constructed and nowhere taller than about sixty centimetres, traces an irregular perimeter with a notably straight southern side running some six metres in length. The largest stones are concentrated in the lower courses, suggesting either deliberate construction practice or simply the slow settling of centuries. An entrance break at the north-east would have been the way in, though what exactly people were coming in and out of is not entirely resolved.

The enclosure is not alone on this hillside. A collapsed drystone structure, now reduced to a scatter of stones barely thirty centimetres high, presses against the outside of the southern wall. Its purpose is uncertain, though it may have served as a hut site, a small roofed space used for shelter or storage. Drystone construction of this kind, built without mortar by laying and wedging stones together for stability, was common across upland Ireland for centuries and can be difficult to date with confidence from surface evidence alone. What makes this particular spot quietly interesting is the clustering: another probable hut site lies roughly fifty metres to the south-west, and a second enclosure sits about the same distance to the south. Together they suggest not an isolated feature but something more like a loose settlement pattern on this slope, with the Clydagh valley laid out below.

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Pete F
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