Sheepfold, Íochtar Cua, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Farm Buildings
On a rough pasture ridge above Lough Currane in south Kerry, the collapsed walls of a small drystone enclosure sit largely unnoticed, the kind of structure that tends to get walked past rather than walked to.
What makes it worth a second look is the detail: not just a roofless pen, but a carefully considered piece of vernacular building, with a separate stone-roofed annexe still partially intact and a narrow lintelled opening connecting the two spaces.
The main enclosure measures roughly five metres east to west and four metres north to south, its walls built from dry-laid stone without mortar, now largely fallen to their lower courses. The entrance, just over half a metre wide, faces north. Attached at the north-east corner is a small rectangular annexe, covered with stone slabs and still standing to about half a metre in height, with its own narrow opening leading through into the main structure. A sheepfold, drystone enclosure used for penning sheep, would typically serve as a working pen for gathering, shearing, or treating animals, and the roofed annexe may have functioned as a small shelter for lambs or for storing basic equipment. The whole thing is thought to date from the nineteenth century, a period when sheep farming was a central part of the rural economy across Kerry's uplands, though the collapse of the main wall has left the interior largely obscured by rubble.