Enclosure, Annagh, Co. Clare
Co. Clare |
Enclosures
On the southern shore of Cloondoorney Lough in County Clare, a small subcircular enclosure sits on a peninsula that is, by any practical measure, barely there.
Ringed by marshy ground with reed beds to the north and east, it occupies a level, dry patch of land that seems almost purposefully isolated from the surrounding terrain. When surveyors visited in February 2018, the enclosure itself was partially submerged and the land around it was entirely underwater.
The enclosure appears on the 1842 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, which gives some sense of how long it has been known, if not fully understood. At that time it was recorded as a subcircular feature, roughly 18 metres across on its longer axis and 17.5 metres on the shorter, defined by a single enclosing element, most likely a bank or ditch marking out a bounded interior from the land around it. Enclosures of this kind are common across the Irish landscape and served a variety of purposes over the centuries, from settlement and agricultural use to ritual functions, though in this case no further detail survives to narrow the question. A hillock to the southwest overlooks the site, which otherwise has limited views of the wider landscape, an unusual quality that sets it apart from enclosures typically placed with an eye to visibility or defensibility.