Enclosure, Mangerton, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Enclosures
On the south-west-facing slope of Mangerton Mountain in County Kerry, a small circular enclosure sits quietly in rough, peaty pasture above the valley of the Owbaun River.
It measures just 5.5 metres east to west and 5.3 metres north to south, its boundary formed by a drystone wall, now largely collapsed, that once rose from the boggy ground. Drystone construction uses no mortar; the stones are carefully fitted against one another, relying on their own weight and arrangement for stability. Along the northern arc, larger boulder-type stones have been worked into the fabric of the wall, while along the eastern arc upright stones remain visible, suggesting that different building techniques, or perhaps different phases of work, were used around its circuit. A possible entrance opens to the north-west.
What makes the site particularly interesting is its immediate context. Roughly ten metres to the west-north-west lies another enclosure, and roughly ten metres to the east-south-east sits a hut site, a low-walled or earthen shelter of the kind associated with seasonal or agricultural use over many centuries in Ireland. Together, the three features form a small cluster, the kind of modest upland settlement that would have supported transhumance, the seasonal movement of people and livestock to higher grazing ground during summer months, a practice once widespread across Ireland. None of the features is individually dramatic, but their proximity to one another on this exposed mountain slope suggests they functioned as a unit, a temporary working landscape that has been slowly returning to the hillside ever since.