What is recorded here

Pookeenee Castle sits inside a seventy-metre curved fort bank on a broad Kerry promontory above Doon Bay. Local story claims nine daughters fell into a sea-fed blowhole called Poll na nIníonach, turning stone and salt water into a tragic mother's choice rather than a simple monster's meal. The fort still holds that castle like a cup holds tea, preserving both human ambition and female erasure within one coastal edge.

Situated S of Doon Bay. The bank and fosse of this promontory fort, which measures c70m in length and runs slightly convex to the land, contains the later construction of Pookeenee Castle (KE004-019002-). The promontory itself is 140m N-S and 92m E-W. In the SW sector of this large promontory is a blow-hole named 'Poulaninneen', Poll na nIníonach (hole of the daughters): 'a deep hole in the land which the sea has a subterraneous passage, into which the inhabitants of Pookeenee old castle clifted his nine daughters dreading their chastity would be violated and put an end to their existence' (OSNB, 1841, 47). A fieldbank cuts through this site in a NW-SE direction. No internal features were to be noted. The above description is derived from C. Toal, ‘North Kerry Archaeological Survey’. Dingle. Brandon in association with FAS Training and Employment Authority (1995), no. 106. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 2 August 2013

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