What is recorded here

Macha Ghrianáin is a forgotten stone ringfort in County Kerry, Ireland, where ancient walls still stand inside boggy pasture near Lough Iskanamacteery. People may have lived there, herded animals there, or simply avoided the place because it belonged to fairy story rather than human memory. Its entrance is blocked enough to shelter lambs now, turning a likely dwelling into a practical refuge for young stock. The fort does not need belief to be strange; it is strange because time has reused it without asking permission.

Internal diam. 17.5m N-S, 18.8m E-W This circular caher, not marked on the OS maps, is located in boggy pasture a short distance N of Lough Iskanamacteery. The site is built into the gradient of a slope and the external face of the enclosing element at N is completely obscured. As S it survives as a broad bank, 7.3m wide, of stone collapse. At E and W the wall has an average thickness of 3.2m, and consists of a sod-covered rubble core faced internally and externally with drystone masonry. Here, it has a maximum external height of 1.9m and rises .6m on average above the interior of the site. An entrance, located at SE, is filled with collapse to the level of its single surviving lintel and has been adapted for use as a lamb shelter. A rectangular sheepfold, built on the foundations of a circular hut (KE090-019001-), occupies the N half of the interior of the site. Its traverses the centre of the hut, and its N wall is the rebuilt side of the hut. The S side of the hut survives as a low and indistinct stony bank which gives an internal diameter of 6.9m. Two small dilapidated stone structures occur outside the caher at SE. Circular in plan, they have average internal diameters of 2.5m. The above description is derived from A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan (compilers), 'The Iveragh peninsula: an archaeological survey of South Kerry'. Cork University Press (1996), no. 612. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 29 July 2013

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