All Images : Canon G1x
Irish ring forts, Co.Kerry
Irish Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington

Leacanabuaile, ring Fort

Sitting on a hill side near Cahersiveen in County Kerry is Leacanabuaile Stone Fort, it is considered one of the best examples of an Irish ring fort.

The name translates to ‘Hillside of the Summer Pasturage’.

This is a magical place and just the kind of prehistory site I love to be in and photograph.

This is the Ireland I have been searching for, this site predates the Irish christian period, and is a period in Irish history that is little covered and has been swallowed up by post christian teaching.

On researching this site I came across this link from Pat Flannery:

http://www.patflannery.com/IrishHistory/TheMilesians.htm

Having visited Leacanabuaile ring fort, I feel that there is some credibility to Pats views on Irish history. The site is located only a few fields in from the Kerry coast-line, it is very believable that the area around this ring fort is the landing site for peoples who settled here.

The Milesians

Around 1500 B.C. the Milisians who came from the Middle East and the Ionian sea came to Kerry in Ireland.

The most interesting thing about all these peoples is that they were Ionian people who were seafarers and thrived much, much earlier than the Celts who were totally Continental and not very good seafarers, rather like the Swiss.

The Irish language and customs would seem to support a close affinity with ancient Greece, the Middle East and Persia. Their heroic stories of warriors and chariots for example are very similar.

Spain and Portugal was merely a stepping off point for the sea journey north to Ireland, but scholars have confused the much later Iberian Celts with the Milesians. Apart from the fact that Celts did not occupy any part of Spain or Portugal until long after the Milesians, believing that everybody who came from Spain was Spanish, let alone Celtic, is similar to the belief of many Americans that their Irish ancestors came from County Cork simply because that’s where their ships left from.

Ring forts

Wikipedia description of ring forts : Ring forts

Excavation of Leacanabuaile

An archaeological excavation uncovered iron knives and mill stones suggesting the existence of an early farming community here. Standing atop the outer walls which are up to 3 metres thick, its great to imagine how the fort looked and how people lived in the past.

Image Gallery

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Cahergall – ring fort

The area around Leacanabuaile also contains Cahergall – ring fort, an even more impressive fort and I will post about this very soon.