Enclosure, Shehy More, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Enclosures
On the north-facing slopes of Shehy More, in a sheltered hollow among bog and rough hill grazing, a small drystone enclosure sits quietly out of sight.
It measures roughly 7.6 metres north to south and 4 metres east to west, its walls built without mortar in the drystone tradition, where stones are stacked and fitted against one another for stability alone. Those walls still stand to a maximum height of 1.1 metres in places, though much of the structure has partially collapsed, and the entrance, wherever it once was, is no longer legible. Rushes have taken over the level interior, softening any sense of what the space might once have contained or been used for.
Enclosures of this kind are scattered across upland Cork and Kerry, and they are rarely straightforward to interpret. Some served as animal pens, others as small field systems or homestead enclosures associated with seasonal settlement. The presence of a hut site approximately 100 metres to the north-west suggests this hollow was not simply used for penning livestock in passing, but may have been part of a broader pattern of activity on the mountain, perhaps connected to the practice of booleying, the seasonal movement of people and cattle to upland pastures during summer months. No dating evidence is recorded for the enclosure itself, so whether it belongs to the early medieval period, the post-medieval era, or somewhere in between remains an open question.