Field boundary, Dromroe, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Field boundary, Dromroe, Co. Kerry

Beneath the surface of a Kerry bog, a field wall continues walking north.

Above ground it measures roughly 45 metres, curvilinear in plan, its top stones just clearing the shallow uncut bog at around half a metre in height before the wall gradually sinks lower and disappears into the deeper peat to the north. The wall is not lost, exactly; it simply keeps going somewhere the ground will not yet allow.

The site sits on an east-facing slope above the valley of the Dromoghty River, in an area of mainly cutaway bog, meaning ground that has already been worked for peat extraction in places, leaving the surrounding landscape uneven and stripped back. The exposed stretch of wall, roughly 0.8 metres thick, protrudes intermittently through what remains of the shallow bog surface. Near its southern end, a cairn, a structured mound of stones that in Irish archaeology often marks a burial or a significant boundary point, stands in close association with the wall. Together the two features suggest an organised and bounded landscape, farmed or managed at a time when this slope was open ground rather than bog. Peat growth in Ireland has been burying field systems, walls, and even entire farm complexes for thousands of years, preserving them in conditions that slow decay considerably. What appears here as a fragment may once have been part of something much larger, with the bog acting less as a destroyer than as an uneven archive.

The wall's curvilinear form is itself worth noting. Straight-sided, rectilinear field divisions are more commonly associated with planned post-medieval enclosure, while curving walls often reflect earlier, more organic land use, boundaries that followed the natural contours of the ground rather than a surveyor's line. Nothing about this particular wall has been definitively dated, but its shape and its slow submersion into the bog place it within a long tradition of pre-drainage Kerry farming that the landscape has quietly absorbed.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Field boundary, Dromroe, Co. Kerry. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement