Field system, Beginish, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Field system, Beginish, Co. Kerry

On the western side of Beginish Island, off the coast of Kerry, an old field system runs between two points known as Goat's Rock and the Pilot's Lookout, and within it stand the remains of four small huts.

The landscape here has a quietly organised quality, the kind that suggests long and purposeful human use rather than any single dramatic event. What makes the site unusual is not the grandeur of any individual structure but the way domestic, agricultural, and natural elements have been woven together over time, with a large natural rock outcrop, Goat's Rock, incorporated directly into the boundary of the main enclosure rather than worked around or ignored.

The field system is associated with a large enclosure, now poorly preserved, whose eastern side takes in Goat's Rock as a ready-made structural element. Around and within this enclosure, four huts of varying form survive. The southernmost is a circular arrangement of slabs set on edge, roughly 2.9 metres in diameter, with what appears to be an entrance on the western side. About six metres to the south of it sits a small rectangular arrangement of stones, open to the south, measuring approximately 2 metres by 1.6 metres and still standing to around 0.3 metres in height. To the north, abutting the enclosure wall, are the rectangular foundations of a third hut, open at the south-west and slightly larger at 3.6 metres by 2.75 metres. A fourth structure, built directly into the rock-face, is interpreted as a probable sheepfold. Together they suggest a working landscape organised around the keeping of animals, with the natural geology pressed into service wherever it was useful.

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Pete F
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