Enclosure, Gortlahard, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Gortlahard, Co. Kerry

On a south-facing slope above the Glashanaglaragh stream in the Kerry uplands, a small triangular enclosure sits in rough hill pasture, its dimensions modest almost to the point of anonymity: four metres east to west, three metres north to south.

What makes it worth pausing over is the way it has been assembled from the landscape itself rather than imposed upon it. Three different boundaries define its edges, each of a different character, none of them built for the purpose alone.

The north-western side is formed by a curving drystone wall, partially collapsed, running to around half a metre in height and roughly the same in thickness. Drystone construction, which uses no mortar and relies entirely on the careful stacking and interlocking of stones, is ancient in Ireland and can be impossible to date without excavation. The eastern boundary is not a wall at all but a linear field boundary that belongs to a separate recorded feature in its own right. The southern edge borrows the northern arc of a hut site, a small circular or oval structure of the kind built for shelter or habitation across many centuries of upland use in Ireland. The enclosure, in other words, is partly opportunistic, shaped by what was already there. A gap at the south-west hints at an original entrance, and the northern interior has been cut slightly into the slope, suggesting someone levelled the ground for a reason, though what that reason was remains unrecorded. Enclosures of this kind in Kerry uplands are often associated with pastoral farming activity, but without excavation the date and precise function of this one cannot be determined with any confidence.

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Pete F
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