Enclosure, Connahy, Co. Kilkenny
Co. Kilkenny |
Enclosures
On the western edge of a flat-topped hill above the Nore river valley in County Kilkenny, a large oval earthwork sits in rough pasture, overlooked by most and gradually being reclaimed by gorse and bramble.
What makes it quietly curious is not its size alone, though at roughly 60 metres north to south and 52 metres east to west it is substantial, but rather its company. A ringfort lies about 180 metres to the north-west, and a second enclosure sits around 170 metres to the north-east. Three ancient monuments within a few hundred metres of each other, on a hilltop with long views sweeping south, west, and north across the river valley, suggest this elevated ground once held some persistent significance.
The enclosure itself is defined by a broad, low bank and a shallow fosse, the fosse being the outer ditch that typically accompanied such earthwork boundaries. The bank measures nearly four metres across at its base, though it rises only about 0.9 metres on the exterior side, giving it a modest rather than imposing profile. The entrance, roughly 2.8 metres wide, sits in the eastern quadrant. Rotting wooden gate posts still stand on either side of it, evidence of relatively recent agricultural reuse, though the positioning strongly suggests the gap follows the line of the original prehistoric or early medieval entrance. This kind of continuity is not unusual; farmers working land for generations often find it practical to open a gate where a gap already exists, even if the earthwork beneath their feet is over a thousand years old.
The interior today is a mixture of open grass and encroaching vegetation, with scrub, gorse, and brambles spreading from the centre southward, and further clumps of bramble in the north-west. Two small stands of conifers have established themselves on and near the bank in the northern and south-eastern quadrants. The western side of the interior dips with the natural slope of the hill. It is the kind of place where the archaeology is subtle, more felt in the proportions of the space than read from any dramatic feature, and where the view outward across the Nore valley does much of the talking.