Enclosure, Shrone, Co. Kerry

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Shrone, Co. Kerry

To the north of Killarney, in a rough field of shoulder-high rushes and briars, there may or may not be an ancient enclosure.

That uncertainty is precisely the point. A low rise in the ground, sitting close to an eastern field boundary, has been formally recorded as a potential archaeological feature, though nobody has yet been able to say with confidence whether it is the remnant of human construction or simply a quirk of the underlying geology. In a landscape smothered by ferns and poorly drained pasture, with land drains cutting across the field, the evidence refuses to resolve itself either way.

The site came to light in 2000, when Michael Connolly, County Archaeologist for Kerry County Council, was carrying out a systematic assessment of a forty square mile area north of Killarney to help determine a suitable road route. It was during that survey sweep that he noticed the low remains and flagged them for the record. An enclosure in the archaeological sense typically refers to a defined area enclosed by an earthen bank, ditch, or wall, and in an Irish context such features can range from early medieval farmsteads to prehistoric ritual sites. Here, however, the vegetation cover and drainage works make it genuinely difficult to read the ground. The rise adjacent to the field boundary is suggestive enough to warrant attention, but not clear enough to classify.

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