Enclosure, Dunnstown, Co. Kildare
Co. Kildare |
Enclosures
There is nothing to see at Dunnstown, and that is precisely what makes it interesting. Six small subrectangular enclosures lie beneath a field of level Kildare pasture, invisible to anyone standing in it, yet clearly legible from the air. Cropmarks of this kind appear when buried features, walls, ditches, or filled pits, affect the soil's ability to retain moisture, causing the grass or grain above them to grow at a slightly different rate. From altitude, the contrast becomes visible, and outlines that have been hidden for centuries briefly reappear.
The six enclosures, catalogued together as a cluster, were identified from a single aerial photograph. When the site was visited on the ground, no earthworks remained; the land had long since been levelled, and heavy grass cover completed the erasure. Subrectangular enclosures of this general type are found across Ireland and can date to a wide range of periods, from the prehistoric through to the early medieval, though without excavation it is impossible to assign a date or function to those at Dunnstown with any confidence. What the aerial record does confirm is that this quiet corner of County Kildare was once organised, enclosed, and used in ways that left a measurable mark on the soil beneath the surface.