Enclosure, Dungarvan, Co. Kilkenny
Co. Kilkenny |
Enclosures
In the rough pasture outside Dungarvan in County Kilkenny, an ancient enclosure sits so thoroughly consumed by trees and scrub that its outline is now more a matter of cartographic record than visible landscape.
What makes it quietly puzzling is that the maps cannot quite agree on what shape it is. The first Ordnance Survey six-inch map, surveyed in 1839, recorded an irregular rectangular form measuring roughly 47 metres northeast to southwest and 37 metres northwest to southeast. By the time the revision came around at the turn of the twentieth century, the same feature had grown considerably on paper, recorded instead as a somewhat larger oval, approximately 83 metres north to south and 40 metres east to west. Whether surveyors were measuring different things, interpreting overgrowth differently, or working from varying field conditions is not clear, but the discrepancy is notable.
Enclosures of this kind are common across the Irish countryside, typically earthen or stone boundaries that once defined a farmstead, a defended residence, or a ritual space, often dating from the early medieval period. This one sits beside a channelised stream running roughly northeast to southwest along its eastern edge, a detail that may reflect deliberate positioning for drainage or water access by whoever originally built here. More striking still is the proximity of a concentric enclosure, a type featuring one ring set inside another, located around 90 metres to the southwest. Concentric enclosures are considered relatively rare and are sometimes associated with higher-status settlement or ceremonial use, which makes their clustering in this small area of Kilkenny countryside worth noting. The two features together suggest a landscape that was once more purposefully organised than the present tangle of scrub and rough pasture would imply.