Enclosure, Killoluaig, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Enclosures
In a field of level pasture on the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry, an oval earthen enclosure sits quietly among modern field boundaries, its interior slightly raised above the surrounding ground as though the land itself is holding something up for inspection.
What makes this place unusual is not its shape or size, though the bank of earth and stone still stands about 1.3 metres high on its better-preserved sides, but rather the cluster of objects gathered within it: a leacht, a gable-shrine, a holed stone, and numerous uninscribed grave-markers. Together, these identify the site as a ceallúnach, an early Irish burial ground for unbaptised children or others excluded from consecrated Christian cemeteries, places that occupied an ambiguous space between the sacred and the unofficial, tended by local communities outside the formal structures of the church.
The enclosure itself measures roughly 25 metres by 17 metres internally, defined by a bank averaging 3 metres wide at its base, though the external face has largely collapsed along the northern side. Two gaps in the bank, at the northwest and southwest, are thought to represent original entrances. A pillar stone has been incorporated into the external face of the enclosing element at the south, and a sod-covered ridge of natural outcrop abuts the enclosure to the west, suggesting the site was partly shaped around the existing topography. Within the broader rectangular area delimited by modern field boundaries, there are also earthworks and a number of house sites, hinting at a more complex pattern of settlement and use over time. A second ceallúnach lies a short distance to the east, which is a striking concentration for a relatively contained area of ground.