Enclosure, Inchincummer, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Inchincummer, Co. Kerry

In the Kerry townland of Inchincummer, an enclosure sits on the landscape, formally recorded as an archaeological monument but largely unspoken of in any publicly available detail.

Enclosures of this kind, found across Ireland in considerable numbers, are among the more enigmatic categories of field monument. The term covers a broad range of features, from ringforts, which were enclosed farmsteads typically dating to the early medieval period, to prehistoric ceremonial or boundary earthworks. Without further documentation it is not possible to say which tradition this particular example belongs to, which is itself part of what makes it quietly interesting.

The townland name Inchincummer, like many Kerry placenames, likely derives from Irish, though its precise meaning is not certain from the available record. Kerry as a county has an unusually dense concentration of early medieval and prehistoric remains, a reflection both of the durable building materials available locally and of the relatively low levels of intensive modern agriculture across parts of the county that might otherwise have erased such features. An enclosure in this landscape could represent anything from a defended homestead to a field boundary with ceremonial origins, its purpose now absorbed into the ground.

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