Enclosure, Mangerton, Co. Kerry

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Mangerton, Co. Kerry

On the south-facing slope of Mangerton Mountain in County Kerry, a small oval enclosure sits in a dry hollow among rough pasture, its collapsed drystone wall barely distinguishable from the surrounding landscape.

It measures roughly 5.5 metres north to south and 4 metres east to west, and what makes it quietly remarkable is the care with which its builders levelled the interior: the southern portion of the floor is raised by about 20 centimetres, while the northern portion is cut 80 centimetres into the hillside, the two adjustments together producing a flat, usable surface on what would otherwise be an awkward slope. The interior is now largely obscured by ferns, and the wall, built of large stones in the drystone manner, has collapsed to a thickness of around 70 centimetres and a surviving height of about 80 centimetres.

The enclosure sits within a network of relict field boundaries, the ghostly outlines of an agricultural landscape that once extended across this part of the mountain. Its purpose is not recorded, but small enclosures of this kind, found across upland Ireland, were typically used for sheltering animals, storing goods, or as ancillary spaces attached to nearby settlement. That nearby settlement may well have been the cashel approximately 38 metres to the north-west. A cashel is a roughly circular stone-walled enclosure, often enclosing a dwelling, characteristic of early medieval Ireland, though the term is applied across a wide chronological range. Whether the enclosure and the cashel are contemporary is unknown, but their proximity and shared landscape context suggest they formed part of the same working environment at some point in the past.

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Pete F
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