Kiln - lime, Ballycanauna, Co. Limerick

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Kilns

Kiln – lime, Ballycanauna, Co. Limerick

On a steep east-facing slope in Ballycanauna, County Limerick, there is an earthen mound that defies easy explanation.

It is large enough to be conspicuous, irregular enough to resist a tidy classification, and sufficiently overgrown that most people passing through the rough pasture around it would likely not give it a second thought. That ambiguity is precisely what makes it worth pausing over.

The mound measures 17.3 metres north to south and 7.2 metres east to west, rising to a height of around 1.55 metres where it protrudes outward from the slope to the east. Built against its northern tip is a mortared stone wall standing approximately 2 metres high, which is the detail that most shapes how the site has been interpreted. Denis Power, who compiled the record uploaded in August 2011, identified it as possibly the remains of a lime kiln. Lime kilns were once a commonplace feature of the Irish rural landscape, used to burn limestone at high temperatures and produce quicklime, which farmers then spread on acidic soils to improve fertility or mixed into mortar for construction. The keyword here is "possibly": the vegetation cover is heavy enough to mask the mound's structure considerably, and without excavation or clearance, a firm identification remains out of reach.

The site sits in rough pasture, so access will depend on landowner permission and a tolerance for uneven, potentially boggy ground. The east-facing slope means morning light falls directly on the mound, which may help when trying to read its contours and pick out the stonework at the northern end. Given the density of the vegetation noted in the record, a visit in late winter or early spring, when growth has died back, is likely to offer the clearest view of what survives. The mortared wall is the most legible feature and worth examining closely; its relationship to the mound is the crux of what makes this an intriguing rather than straightforward site.

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Pete F
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