Field boundary, Istalea, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Field boundary, Istalea, Co. Kerry

On the south-west-facing slope of Knockanaguish Hill in County Kerry, a set of old field walls breaks through the surface of the bog like the ribs of something long buried.

The walls themselves are modest, roughly 0.8 metres thick and 0.6 metres high, but what makes them quietly odd is the way they are arranged: three separate walls radiating outward from an enclosure, each running in a different direction, as though the landscape was once organised around that central point in a deliberate and considered way.

The three walls connect to the north, south, and south-east arcs of a circular enclosure, the kind of feature that in the Irish landscape can indicate an early medieval or prehistoric farmstead. The northernmost wall runs upslope for 30 metres, the southern wall extends 12 metres away from the enclosure, and the longest of the three, a north-west to south-east wall measuring 35 metres, leads away from what appears to have been the entrance on the south-east side. That detail, the wall beginning just outside the entrance, suggests this was not simply a boundary but part of a working agricultural layout, channelling movement or enclosing stock in relation to the main enclosure. The bog, which has slowly crept over the pasture, has preserved the walls rather than destroyed them, holding their proportions in a way that dry ground rarely manages over the same span of time.

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Pete F
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