Field boundary, Kimego, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Field boundary, Kimego, Co. Kerry

On the eastern edge of Cooncrome Harbour in County Kerry, a low stone wall inches its way across bogland towards the cliff-tops, its slabs tilting and leaning as if the ground itself has been slowly pulling them under.

It is not a ruin in any dramatic sense, but something quieter and more puzzling: a boundary that once divided land nobody would farm today, stretching roughly a hundred metres across rough grazing before petering out near the cliff edge.

The wall is curvilinear in plan, meaning it follows a curved rather than strictly straight line, which is a common characteristic of early Irish field systems that predate the geometric logic of later enclosure. At only about sixty centimetres thick and thirty centimetres above the current surface, much of it has been swallowed by the bog. What remains visible protrudes intermittently, the slab-type stones set at right angles to the wall's line rather than laid flat, a construction technique that suggests some age and intention. Bog accumulation is slow and gradual, and the degree to which these stones have been absorbed points to a considerable span of time since someone last maintained or used this boundary. The gentle west-facing slope on which it sits, edging towards sea cliffs on the Iveragh Peninsula, would once have formed part of an agricultural or pastoral landscape now largely reclaimed by wet ground.

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