Field system, Gortlahard, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Field system, Gortlahard, Co. Kerry

On a south-west-facing slope above the valley of the Sheen River in County Kerry, a collapsed drystone wall traces a rough U-shape across rough pasture, enclosing what was once a field.

The wall is modest in what remains of it, roughly half a metre thick and about the same in height, but its basal stones still protrude from the peat, anchoring the structure in place as the bog slowly works to reclaim it. A further length of wall extends southward from the base of the U for about twenty-five metres before disappearing entirely into deeper bog, as though the landscape has simply swallowed the rest of the story.

What makes this corner of the townland boundary between Cappagh and Gortlahard quietly compelling is not any single feature but the density of what surrounds it. Five hut sites lie in the immediate vicinity, along with at least one other field system and a further relict field boundary. Taken together, these suggest a landscape that was once actively farmed and settled, probably during a period when the bog had not yet advanced so far up the slope, and when a community found the terrain workable enough to divide, enclose, and inhabit. The drystone construction, in which stones are laid without mortar and rely on their own weight and arrangement for stability, is a technique with deep roots in Irish agricultural practice, and the presence of upright slabs set at right angles to the wall line hints at a carefully considered, if now ruinous, structure. Precisely when all this activity took place is not recorded, but the encroachment of peat over the lower wall suggests considerable age.

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Pete F
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