Enclosure, Maulagowna, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Maulagowna, Co. Kerry

Some archaeological sites announce themselves with standing stones or crumbling walls.

This one in Maulagowna, at the foot of Knocknagorraveela Mountain in south-west Kerry, does the opposite. A circular enclosure roughly ten metres across sits somewhere in the rough pasture below the mountain's steep west-facing slopes, and if you were to walk right over it, you would almost certainly notice nothing at all.

What is known comes from a single aerial photograph taken in 1973, in which the enclosure's outline becomes legible from above in a way the ground simply does not reveal. Circular enclosures of this kind are common features of the Irish archaeological landscape, typically interpreted as the remains of ringforts or enclosed farmsteads from the early medieval period, though some have earlier origins. Without excavation it is impossible to say more about this particular example. The vegetation patterns or soil differences that made it visible to a camera in 1973 may have shifted since, and the site remains, for all practical purposes, invisible to anyone standing in the field.

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Pete F
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