What is recorded here

Indicated is a ruined stone ringfort in County Kerry, Ireland, where sheep now drink and people forget the cave hidden beneath the cement. The south wall still stands two metres high, marked by flat boulder slabs and a narrow gap that may have been its door. A cave appeared in the centre when the site was paved over, then vanished without trace. The fortlives half-remembered, half-buried, waiting for someone to stop treating it as mere farm equipment.

Internal diam. 21.3m N-S, 22m E-W This severely modified caher, known locally as 'Caher-abhan', is located on a low ridge just S of the Oweveen river, a tributary of the Cummeragh. The site has been adapted for use as a sheep dip and pound by cementing over its interior, constructing several walls and rebuilding most of its internal wall-face. The original enclosing element survives best at S, where it measures 2.8m wide and 1.65m high. Here it is faced externally with flat boulder-like slabs set in rough horizontal courses. Much collapse abuts the external base of the wall. A gap at NNW, 1.5m wide, may represent the location of the original entrance. A large slab, 1.45m x .8m x .3m, lies outside it, and it was suggested by O'Connell that it originally served as an entrance lintel (KAS). O'Connell also noted two 'guard-rooms' in the bank, close to the entrance, but these are no longer apparent. At NW a number of sheepfolds and an old field boundary abut the site externally, and a second field boundary extends from the site at SE. A 'cave' was discovered in the centre of the site when it was being cemented over (local information). No apparent surface trace of this possible Man-made underground passage (KE089-064001-) survives. 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. 587. 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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