Enclosure, Garranes, Co. Kerry

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Garranes, Co. Kerry

On a south-facing slope above the valley of the Glantrasna River in south-west Kerry, a small circular enclosure sits half-swallowed by bogland, its lower courses of drystone walling still visible where they push through the turf.

What makes it quietly arresting is the engineering embedded in its construction: the builders cut into the uphill side of the slope to a depth of roughly thirty centimetres, and raised the southern interior by about sixty centimetres, so that the ground within the circle sits perfectly level. The result is a kind of deliberate illusion, a flat floor carved out of a hillside, the effort involved far exceeding what a casual glance at the modest remains would suggest.

The enclosure is roughly circular, measuring just under nine metres north to south and eight metres east to west, defined by a ruinous drystone wall that now stands no higher than about sixty-five centimetres and runs to a similar thickness. Along the eastern perimeter, a single upright stone slab has been set into the wall, one metre long and standing to the same height as the wall itself. Its purpose is not recorded, though prominent single stones positioned within or at the edge of enclosures are a feature found across early Irish archaeological sites. A relict field boundary, the ghost of an older agricultural landscape, abuts the enclosure at the north-west, suggesting that whatever this structure was, it once sat within a working farmed environment rather than in isolation. The bog has since claimed the surrounding ground, leaving the enclosure stranded in rough hill pasture, its original context largely dissolved.

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Pete F
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