Enclosure, Gortderrig, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Gortderrig, Co. Kerry

On the north-facing slopes of The Paps of Dana, two rounded hills in County Kerry whose name echoes the ancient goddess Danu, there is an enclosure that cannot actually be seen.

Standing in the pasture where it supposedly lies, there is nothing to observe at ground level, no ridge of earth, no shadow of a wall, no break in the grass to suggest that anything was ever arranged here by human hands.

What is known comes from cartography rather than fieldwork. The 1894 Ordnance Survey six-inch map records a rectangular enclosure at this location, its dimensions modest at roughly ten metres on its longer axis and five metres on the shorter. Enclosures of this kind, typically defined by a bank or ditch, were used across early Irish history for a range of purposes, from sheltering livestock to marking out domestic or ritual space. Whether this one served any of those functions remains unclear, since the qualification "possible" is doing considerable work in its description. Some distance to the south, approximately 130 metres, a hut site has been recorded separately, hinting that this part of the hillside may once have supported some low-level, scattered activity, though the relationship between the two features is not established.

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Pete F
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