What is recorded here

Canroe on Beginish Island still holds fifteen small stone cairns beside eight houses and animal shelters, marking a busy coastal settlement rather than a single buried grave. People likely cleared those stones from narrow fields and stacked them in little hills because the work was done and the stones were in the way. The island leans between Valencia Island and the mainland, exposing its fields at low tide and withdrawing them under water again, so the boundary between home and sea keeps moving around the remains.

Beginish Island lies between Valencia Island and the mainland at the N end of Valencia Harbour. Its E end comprises a narrow splayed projection terminating in a curving sand-bar at its SE tip, which, at certain low tides, is connected with the nearby Church Island (KE079-032001-). The highest point at this end of the island is known as Canroe, and a settlement complex located here extends from its western side over its summit and down to the rocky shoreline at E. The complex comprises eight houses, fifteen cairns, eight animal shelters and two poorly constructed structures, all of which lie within an extensive network of fields and walls. An iron smelting site (KE079-117----) occurs at its W end. The complex was investigated by O’Kelly in the early 1950s and two houses, a cairn and an animal shelter were fully excavated. The following description of the site is based on the report of these excavations (O’Kelly 1956, 159-94). Cairns: (12) (KE079-031019-) Fourteen of the fifteen cairns on Canroe occur on its E side, and one is located close to the houses on its W side. The cairns are composed of small stones and may be the result of field clearance activities. One well-preserved example (9), located 55m NE of House 6, was completely excavated. It measured 3.5m in diameter and .5m high, but no finds were recovered. 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. 1132. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 31 July 2013

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