Field boundary, Lounaghan, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Field boundary, Lounaghan, Co. Kerry

On the north-east-facing slopes of Knockbrack in south-west Kerry, a set of ancient field walls is slowly losing an argument with the bog.

The walls break the surface intermittently, rising between ten centimetres and sixty centimetres out of the peat, and together they trace a pattern across the hillside covering roughly five hundred metres east to west and two hundred and fifty metres north to south. In places the bog has swallowed them entirely; elsewhere, moor-grass and heather obscure their outlines. What survives is enough to suggest a landscape that was once organised for farming, now almost entirely reclaimed by the hill.

Relict field systems of this kind are not uncommon across upland Ireland, where blanket bog has preserved, and simultaneously buried, traces of agricultural activity that might otherwise have vanished completely. The walls at Lounaghan are mostly curvilinear and irregular in their layout, which is typical of pre-medieval and early medieval field organisation, though some straight sections do occur. Particularly notable are tall upright slabs, standing roughly a metre high, which appear at intervals along the wall lines. These may have served as gateposts, marker stones, or structural anchors within the wall fabric itself, though their precise function is not recorded. The combination of low rubble walling and tall intermittent slabs gives the system a slightly improvised character, as though it was built, extended, and adjusted over a long period rather than laid out to a single plan.

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Pete F
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