Kiln - lime, Castlekevin, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Kilns
Set into a quarry at Castlekevin in North Cork, this lime kiln is a surprisingly substantial piece of industrial architecture, the kind of structure that gets walked past without a second thought yet repays a closer look.
At roughly seven metres high and nearly six metres wide across its south-facing front, it is far larger than the modest field kilns that dot the Irish countryside, and the quality of its construction suggests it was built for serious, sustained use rather than occasional farm work.
A lime kiln was essentially a furnace for converting limestone into quicklime, a material in constant demand for mortaring stonework, whitewashing buildings, and improving acidic soils. This one follows a well-established form: random-rubble limestone walls packed around an earthen core, with a broad arched recess at the front, roughly 2.3 metres high and 2.5 metres wide, where the finished lime would be drawn off through an opening at the base. Further back, corbelled stonework, where flat stones are stacked in overlapping courses to form a rough vault or channel, surrounds a stoking hole through which fuel was fed to keep the burn going. The brick-lined funnel at the top, about two metres in diameter, is now partially filled in, but its presence indicates a degree of refinement in the kiln's construction. The ground immediately behind the structure has been disturbed in recent times, which may have affected whatever ancillary features once accompanied it.