Field system, Narraghmore Demesne, Co. Kildare

Co. Kildare |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Field system, Narraghmore Demesne, Co. Kildare

Somewhere beneath the soil of Narraghmore Demesne in County Kildare, the faint outline of an ancient landscape lies invisible to anyone walking the ground. It only becomes legible from the air, where the differential growth of crops betrays what is buried beneath, a phenomenon known as cropmarking, in which buried ditches and features cause overlying vegetation to grow at slightly different rates, producing patterns that aerial cameras can capture even when nothing breaks the surface.

A single aerial photograph, referenced as GB89.AF.36, revealed the cropmarks of a series of linear fosses, or ditches, extending outward from a larger enclosure and suggesting the organised division of land associated with a field system. On the same image, roughly forty metres to the north-west, a second and smaller enclosure appears as a distinct cropmark. The two features together point toward a settlement or agricultural complex that once structured this corner of Kildare, though the photograph alone cannot date it or tell us who laid it out. The enclosures and their associated boundaries remain unexcavated, their origins and period unconfirmed.

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