Field boundary, Drombohilly, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Field boundary, Drombohilly, Co. Kerry

On a west-facing slope above Kenmare Bay, a network of old stone walls is slowly disappearing into the bog.

They do not form the neat, straight lines familiar from later land enclosure; instead they curve and meander across the hillside, as if following the contours of a landscape that was organised according to entirely different priorities. The walls protrude only intermittently above the surface of the accumulated peat, present in one stretch, absent in another, then reappearing further upslope.

The network covers an area roughly 150 metres east to west and 120 metres north to south, set in what is now rough hill pasture. A typical surviving stretch stands about 45 centimetres high and 70 centimetres thick, modest dimensions that nonetheless represent a considerable effort of construction. One wall begins just north of an associated enclosure nearby, runs northward for around ten metres, then curves uphill to the east for approximately fifty metres before it, too, gives way to gaps and silence. The curvilinear form of these boundaries is characteristic of early field systems in Ireland, where walls and banks were laid out to suit the local terrain rather than imposed upon it, and where agriculture was organised around small, irregular plots rather than the larger rectangular fields that became common in later centuries. The relationship to the nearby enclosure suggests this was once a coherent agricultural landscape, the fields and their boundaries functioning together as a working unit on a hillside that now sees little cultivation.

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Pete F
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