House - indeterminate date, Aghanacrinna, Co. Kerry

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House

House – indeterminate date, Aghanacrinna, Co. Kerry

Within a large earthwork at Aghanacrinna in north County Kerry, three small stone structures sit quietly inside a double-banked enclosure, their original purpose still unresolved.

They are catalogued as possible house-sites, that cautious phrasing carrying more weight than it might first appear. Nobody has yet confirmed with certainty what these buildings were, when they were built, or who used them.

The enclosure itself is a bivallate rath, meaning it was defended by two concentric earthen banks with a ditch, called a fosse, cut between them. Raths of this type are a familiar feature of the Irish countryside, most often associated with the early medieval period, though the date here remains indeterminate. This one spans nearly sixty metres east to west at its widest point, and its interior sits roughly level with the surrounding land, suggesting the banks were raised rather than the interior excavated. Inside, the three sub-rectangular stone structures are arranged loosely across the space. The largest occupies the western sector. A smaller structure lies about five metres to the south-east, and a third sits roughly five metres to the north-east, measuring approximately 4.4 metres by 2.6 metres with walls close to a metre thick. These dimensions are modest, consistent with small domestic or agricultural buildings, though the stonework alone cannot confirm their function. The descriptions come from Caroline Toal's North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995, which documented sites across this part of the county in considerable systematic detail.

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