Mound, An Bhinn Bhán, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Mound, An Bhinn Bhán, Co. Kerry

Inside the remains of a caher on the Iveragh Peninsula, a cluster of low, grass-covered mounds sits without explanation.

A caher is a stone-walled ringfort, a type of enclosed settlement common across early medieval Ireland, and the interior of such a structure would ordinarily be understood with some confidence after decades of survey work in Kerry. These mounds, however, resist that confidence. Their origin remains unclear, which is itself a notable thing to say about a site on a peninsula that has been archaeologically studied in considerable detail.

The mounds at An Bhinn Bhán were recorded as part of a comprehensive survey of south Kerry carried out by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan, published by Cork University Press in 1996. That survey catalogued the extraordinary density of prehistoric and early historic monuments across the Iveragh Peninsula, ranging from promontory forts to souterrains to field systems. The mounds here are noted as a distinct feature within the caher, cross-referenced separately, but no function is assigned to them. They may be the remains of collapsed internal structures, accumulated domestic debris, or something older entirely, but the record does not commit to any of these possibilities.

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