Enclosure, Glanmore, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Glanmore, Co. Kerry

On the lower north-western slopes of Derryclancy Mountain in Glanmore, there is an archaeological site that cannot be seen from the ground at all.

It exists, in a practical sense, only from the air.

The site is an oval enclosure, roughly 90 metres east to west and 65 metres north to south, sitting in rough pasture on the hillside. Enclosures of this kind are among the most common prehistoric and early medieval features in the Irish landscape, typically defined by an earthen bank or fosse and used variously for settlement, agriculture, or ritual purposes. What makes this one quietly peculiar is that whatever defined its boundary has been so thoroughly absorbed into the surrounding terrain that it leaves no perceptible trace underfoot. Its existence was recorded from an aerial photograph taken in 1973, in which the outline of the enclosure became legible as a cropmark or soil variation, the kind of faint shadow that only reveals itself when viewed from altitude under the right conditions of light, drought, or crop stress. At ground level, a person walking across it would notice nothing unusual at all, just rough mountain pasture on a Kerry hillside.

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Pete F
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